Our old friend Susan Lenfestey’s holiday cheer has apparently been harshed by President Obama’s first year in office…

…oh, who are we kidding?  Susan Lenfestey has never met a mellow she couldn’t harsh.

Still, even by her dysthemic standards, this blog post was a doozy:

Maya Angelou’s poem, Still I Rise, has been going through my head lately. Some verses:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Catch that?  If Susan Lenfestey’s special little world, Barack Obama – a child of the middle class, who’s benefited not only from the best (or at least highest-rated) education American money can buy but from the American people’s open-mindedness, is no different than a Jim Crow-era sojourner who had to deal with real, genuine, constant oppression!

I’d say “every single one of us who disagrees with the President must be no better in their eyes than some Grand Kleagle”, but I guess we’ve already established that).

Feel like that’s what our president is dealing with, and still, he rises.

Well, no.  He doesn’t.

Below is a reject from the Star Tribune on Obama’s Afghan speech. Yeah, it’s a tad dated, and we’re on to Copenhagen, but Barb is sick of holding up her end of the line without me, so I thought maybe something’s better than nothing. Or maybe not. Sorry for the absence, I lost my mind.

This absence of smart-ass riposte is brought to you by the kinder, gentler Mitch.  Or at least the Mitch that’ll let the occasional hanging curve-ball by out of pity.

While I’ve spent much of the last eight years bagging on former (?) Strib columnist Nick Coleman, it’s not been an unalloyed thing.  When he’s focused on being a city columnist, as opposed to a not-overbright pundit, he writes good stuff; at his best, he’s sort of a “made in Singapore” Studs Terkel. 

Of course, he was rarely at his best; less and less so as the years unwound.  He hit his nadir during the 35W Bridge collapse; he got downsized from the columnist stable shortly thereafter. 

He’s apparently found some sort of work with some sort of think tank.  But I suspect his “downsizing” was more than tad Potemkin; he still appears in the Strib.  Lots.

And it’s just not the same Nick.  I busted him over the summer, parroting MN2020 shrieking points, and not very well at that.  It’s almost like he gets copies of press releases, and just writes in condescending and not very literate insults between the lines.

So what’s Nick up to now?  Well, you be the judge (emphasis added), a week or so ago he turned his keen journalistic senses to what he apparently thought was the key conservative issue of the past few weeks- Obama pre-empting “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”:

I also heard a “Tea Party” supporter on radio claiming that you can tell Obama hates America just by looking at him. All I can tell by looking at him is that his skin color is different than that of every other president. Maybe that’s what the Tea Party person meant.

Ah.  The old “Wing Nutz Are Teh Racist!, based on the off-handed and ill-considered (at best) remark by one person dragged out of context and immortalized by whomever  controls the edit suite” bit.  I hate to say it, but Coleman is making that whole “parrotting MN2020 without thinking” thing look pretty good in retrospect.  He’s now down to parrotting…Keith Olbermann?  Fast Eddie Schultz?  Rachel Maddow?

I was going to leave it at that.  Because I’ve long since learned that any effort I spend fisking Coleman is effort I could have spent…I dunno, itching my elbow?

But this is rich – where by “rich” I really mean “depressing that someone gets paid for writing the kind of duckspeak that’d get ignored on a fourth-rate leftyblog”.

We’ve heard the socialist slur repeatedly from such brilliant students of history as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann (Minnesota’s Poster Girl for Why We Need High School Civics Classes)

Says the guy who is a case study in how badly our system fails our students at science, logic and empirical reasoning.

and that pinnacle of wit and wisdom, Sean Hannity, who is the kind of Irishman my people used to refer to as “Blueshirts.”

“…my people…”

“Your people”, Mr. Coleman, came to America so that they could at long last leave their squalid anscestral squabbling back in the Old Country.  Like most of “our people”, they came to this country so they could escape, transcend and eventually forget the bigotries, hatreds and jealousies of their caste-ridden, incompetent homelands.

So do “your people” proud, and leave your callow IRA references at Ellis Island; “your people” are now a bunch of plush-bottom yahoos who have been “the man” in this country for generations; Among “his people” his father, the former Speaker of the Minnesota House; his little brother Chris is the King George III of Saint Paul; Nick himself is the very Charles Townsend-esque embodiment of “the status quo” in the Twin Cities media.

Blueshirt this.

I realize you get that sense of edgy rebellion by calling our governor “Timmy”.  And ordinarily I’d not be the one to rain on your parade, however pathetic “your parade” would seem to be.

However, he was elected by a plurality of your neighbors – twice.  So it’s actually “Governor Pawlenty” to you.

That is all.

Y’know, I have to confess – two weeks ago, when I ribbed the local “Minnesota Netroots Conference” – the last thing I’d have expected was that any of them would actually be reading me.  Partly because, I’ll be honest, my readership among local leftyboggers is pretty darn minimal, and partly because I don’t think a lot of them read outside their own little circle.

But a reader forwarded me this photo here, apparently taken from a local leftyblogger’s photostream:

Hm.

On the one hand, I do feel just a little bit younger, fielding “attacks” that I first fielded in second grade – which was the first of the several times in my life I’ve been smarter than all of my critics.

And it is both a more flattering rendition of me than any recent photo, and also nicer than anything my family or friends have called me in twenty years.

But I have to apologize; when I said that the local leftyblog community didn’t have a better cartoonist than Ken Weiner, I see I was, again, mistaken.

We can all learn, I guess.

Cheers, local leftybloggers!

(I’m no handwriting analyst – but in my mind’s eye, that looks like I’d imagine Robin “Rew” Marty’s flip-sheet scrawl looks).

UPDATE:  Robin submitted a sample of her flipchart writing (or…did she?) and it didn’t appear to be the same author (or…was it?)

Here’s one for the Hall of Shame.

A few months ago, US Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead.  The death was suspicious – he was found hanging, with anti-government graffiti scrawled on his chest.

This happened not long after Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke about her ambivalence about cooperating with a census that, at the time, the Obama Administration was overtly politicizing.

The Sorosphere leapt into action.  To pick three examples:

• The direly-misnamed “Thinkprogress” took all of a day to conjure up a mythical right-wing terror movement  based on the death.
• City Pages generic angst-filled hYpStR Matt Hoffman went all CSI on us before the police were even done at the crime scene:  “Now a census worker has been found in what appears to be an anti-government lynching. Does Bachmann own some responsibility?
• Dusty “The Michael Brodkorb Of Snark” Trice delivered a verdict before they’d actually cut Sparkman’s body down: “I’m going to say it again because sadly I feel it bears repeating. I strongly believe that the inflammatory rhetoric Rep. Michele Bachmann thinks passes for policy debate is going to end in violence. “

“Inflammatory rhetoric”.  Heh. 

Heh.  Heh.

Oh, yeah.  It’s official; they were full of s**t (emphases added by me):

A part-time U.S. Census worker found dead near a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a murder, authorities have concluded.

Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, apparently was trying to preserve payments under life insurance policies he had taken out, one as recently as May, which paid benefits if he died as a result of murder or accident, but not suicide or natural causes, police said.

Sparkman had survived a bout with cancer a few years ago, but he told a friend he believed the cancer had returned and that he would die, police said.

In a two-month investigation, police marshaled a number of reasons to conclude Sparkman ended his own life. Among other things, only Sparkman’s DNA was found on evidence at the scene, and he had told a friend details of his plan that matched what happened, police said at a news conference Tuesday.

And when, not if, some leftyblogging hamster tries to equivocate on this result, let it be repeated:

Police interviewed potential homicide suspects but ruled them out and found no evidence pointing to any conclusion except that Sparkman killed himself.

Matt?  Dusty?  “Think?” 

All of you leftyblog hamsters?

Do you have something to tell all the sane, responsible people?

Followup question:  Sparkman could have chosen many, many ways to cover up his suicide.  But as his last act on this earth, Sparkman apparently chose to go out in a way that, he would seem to have known, would implicate in his death a whole lot of peaceable, law-abiding people whose only “crime” is distrusting government; people like Rep. Bachmann and, incidentally, me (in addition to committing fraud).  Question:  Whose rhetoric is really doing the harm, here?

I ask people on the left, constantly, “so what, precisely, is the problem you have with Katherine Kersten – besides the fact that she’s a conservative?”

The closest thing I’ve seen to an answer that wasn’t solely fueled by politics was “she was never a reporter; she’s nothing but a think tank writer”.  In this story – one you usually hear from people in the media – the idea that spending years becoming a hard-drinking, dyspeptic “ink-stained wretch” is the bit of seasoning in the human stew that makes a columnist a columnist.  It’s sort of an echo of Nick Coleman’s  classic explanation of why he’s better than bloggers,  “I Know  Stuff”, where “stuff” equals “reporter” stuff – as if the life experience we all bring to the table doesn’t really give one a useful perspective on anything.  To these people, knowing the double-dog secret ace reporter handshake is the only real qualification.

Enh.

Another one – and this one is overtly partisan – is that “Kersten is closely linked to Power Line“.  I’ve heard it from any number of Twin Cities’ lefty writers, although Brian Lambert actually wrote it.

Now, I’ve seen a few leftymedia types jump from that to “Kersten and Powerline have the same opinions”, as if it’s unthinkable that four conservatives would have some occasional synchronicity, and ignoring that they, the critic, was usually in completely sync with “The Daily Kos” at any rate…

…but that’s not really the point.

I’m curious:  the leftymedia says that Kersten having the occasional episode of synchronicity with Power Line is a bad thing…

…while Nick Coleman  – the columnist against whom Kersten is constantly unfavorably compared because his decades as a reporter and columnist and just-plain observer – can get a complete pass for writing an uncritical, incurious, note-by-note regurgitation of a liberal think-tank piece to which Coleman added not a whiff of his vaunted no-nonsense reportorial curiosity or experience or world-weary inquisitiveness.  Indeed, Coleman added nothing but a little brow-beating prejudice.

So let me ask, again – what is the comparison, here?  Other than politics, of course?

Getting a job at the City Pages is apparently like getting a “diary” on Minnesota “Progressive” Project.

Otherwise, how would “Hart Van Denburg” have gotten to get this bit here published?

Last week, MinnPost gave controversial conservative scribe Katherine Kersten a free megaphone for her oft-repeated views on everything from gay marriage to liberal rage.

Ah.  So it’s a critique of “objective” (I slay me) publications allowing conservatives onto their pages.  Especially one that has drawn so much utterly deranged ire as Kersten.

…or – is it?

On Sunday, the St. Cloud Times did something similar for District 6 conservative Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Er…right?  She represents the district the Saint Cloud Times is in.  Worth an interview – right?  Especially given that it wasn’t two years ago that the lefty “alternative” media was in a lather because Bachmann purportedly didn’t do non-conservative media anymore. (Although as we found in the series I wrote, she does a lot more liberal media than Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum or Al Franken do conservative media).

Both interviews were published in a question-and-answer format in which the interviewers pitched softball questions and then never challenged their subjects on any of their assertions.

Ah.  I get it.  Now it critiques the interview style.  Because any time one interviews a conservative, one is supposed to bellow “You Are Teh Crazee!” until one loses bladder control.

St. Cloud Times Washington correspondent Larry Bivens penned the Bachmann interview. Here’s a sample exchange:

(Passage of interview in which Larry Bivens apparently did not jump on his desk and below “You are teh crazee” excised for brevity’s sake).

Just a month ago, Pawlenty joined forces with the likes of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to endorse the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman in a campaign to unseat Republican Dede Scozzafava in New York’s District 23 congressional race.

Scozzafava was deemed not sufficiently conservative. She dropped out of the race.

Democrat Bill Owens won the election.

(Running against a third-party candidate who’d had weeks to mount a campaign on no budget, against not only Owens but against Scozzafava, who dumped a million into an election where she spent more time bagging on Hoffman than Owens, before bowing out).

But what is this piece trying to say?  “Bad Twin Cities media for talking to Kersten and Bachmann because Pawlenty joined with Limbaugh to endorse someone who didn’t win yet?”

Did I sit next to Hart Van Denburg on the bus the other day?

Robin “Rew” Marty is leaving the Center for “Independent” Media – the “non-profit” that controls and bankrolls a whole slew of “independent” political propaganda sites like the Minnesoros “Independent“:

Over my years with the CIM my job became more and more operational based, and now that they are larger, they have hired enough people to move all operations into the DC office itself, and now having an operations person outside of DC just doesn’t make a lot of sense functionally. I’ll be wrapping up some advertising projects for them in the next two weeks, and then I’ll be moving on altogether.

In other words, any pretense of “independence” on the part of the Mindy would seem to be null and void; the national office has assumed control.

And is there a memory hole of some kind?  Remember – Robin was the Mindy’s first editor, back when they were still the Minnesoros Monitor.

But as I began to spend more time helping the CIM set up other state based networks, I moved internally to the CIM and Paul Schmelzer took over MinMon, probably the best thing to ever happen to that site.

I’ll agree that Schmelzer is a capable journalist, writer and editor – one of the best in the local leftyblogger market.

But – isn’t Robin forgetting someone?

Someone who bridged the time between Robin’s leaving and Paul’s accession?  Steve Perry, one of the more renowned muckraking journalists in the Twin Cities, who spent a year bringing over his pals from the City Pages to try to turn it into a real news organization…

…only to be rebuffed, as they found out after the election, when the CIM whacked most of the staff – because the mission (electing Obama) was accomplished?:

Robson became a casualty when MnIndy’s parent, the D.C.-based Center for Independent Media (CIM), eliminated the freelance budget entirely…However, Robson — who writes about arts for MinnPost and sports for The Rake — was caustic in his view [of] MnIndy’s Capitol overlords. He says CIM’s national staff was less interested in the organization’s professed mission — “a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that operates an independent online news network in the public interest” — than boosting the party of Barack Obama.

…after which Perry decamped?

Ah, well.  The left wrote the book on memory holes.

Anyway, Robin’s got big plans:

For now, I am going to be working on freelance and consulting projects, my first being a contract to work part time with one of my favorite advocacy groups

All the best, Robin!

(Via Luke Hellier on Twitter)

CORRECTION:  Apparently I’m the one who forgot:

[Schmelzer] took over MNindy in June of 2007 as editor, when [Marty] moved to the CIM itself.  Steve Perry came in as a senior editor in March of 2008, and then left in November of 2008.  Paul has been the editor all throughout that time.

In my defense, I’m a critic, not an HR person.

But duly noted.

…and you’re wondering why there are forty nebbishy white guys with professor glasses and Elvis Costello hair cuts in front of you at Subway asking if there’s arugula and if the salami is free-range, and if the line at Caribou is paralyzed by perpetually outraged-looking women who look and sound like Sarah Vowell gabbing about why the Minnesota History Center is allowed to keep “his” in its name, and if you say “teabag” outloud and instead of a nervous titter or an uncomfortable shuffling of feet you get a round of applause so very very unanimous as to feel just a little bit odd?

Not to worry.  “Netroots Minnesota” is going on at the Hilton Garden.  “Progressive” bloggers will be coming from all over Minnesota and, one suspects, beyond, to demand more Hope and Change now!, and to respond in perfect enthusiastic unison “off what and how high?” when George Soros tells them to “Jump”.  Expect to see little clots of nervous twentysomethings who’ve never been east of the light rail wandering around lost; look for graying ex-hippies wandering the streets begging for cops to taze and teargas them so they can be in the news too, unaware that the RNC ended 14 months ago.

Look for the only people of color in the room to the on the panels or working for the hotel.

Some “highlights”

Tools to Hold Your Opponents AccountableSAT, 11/21/2009 – 3:30pm, Ballroom
Think your opponent has some skeletons in the closet? Are they prone to gaffes? Learn how to uncover their public records, negatives and voting record, as well as tracking the candidate on the campaign trail.
PANELISTS: Sally Jo Sorensen, Bluestem Prairie; DJ Danielson, Field Organizer, MN House DFL Caucus, 2008; Laura Askelin, President SEMN Labor Council; Liz McLoone, MN AFL CIO Field Representative & former Senate Majority staff.

In other words, “how to be a blog stalker”.   Because the local leftyblogosphere has such a shortage of ethics-challenged jagoffs who see themselves as ace reporters.

Push ‘N’ Pull: How Traditional Advocacy Organizations and Netroots Activists Can Create Progressive Change Through Impact Journalism and Action
SAT, 11/21/2009 – 10:15am, Town Square Ballroom

A one hour discussion with reporters, advocacy organizations and outreach communicators on how to create impactful stories, reach out to interested advocacy groups, and bring about action that will create real change. We will also walk through a case study of how one article written in September of 2008 eventually forced John McCain to concede Michigan.
PANELISTS: Paul Schmelzer, Center for Independent Media; Hanaa Rifaey, Center for Independent Media; Denise Cardinal, Alliance for a Better Minnesota

Hint to leftybloggers:  save the money on this one; all they do is tell you to call the Republican “crazy” in a thousand different ways.  A good thesaurus will do the trick.

Oh, yeah – and if you ever wondered about the rigorous fairness of the Strib’s coverage of regional politics, wonder no more (emphasis added by yours truly)!

Gubernatorial Candidate ForumFRI, 11/20/2009 – 6:00PM, Town Square Ballroom
DFL candidates for governor will join us at Netroots Minnesota to take questions directly from you. The candidates will be asked questions solicited online via Twitter, Facebook, and email, and in person, during a discussion moderated by Star Tribune writer Lori Sturdevant.

I wonder if Star Tribune writer Lori Sturdevant will badger the DFL candidates to move to the center to return to the sainted “bipartisan” glory days of Minnesota politics?

Any bets on that?

Hey – I wonder if I could get a Strib columnist to host the next MOB party?  Other than Lileks, I mean?

Anyway, welcome to Saint Paul, Netroots (and if I were a classy fella like some of the leftymedia, I’d come up with a borderline obscene sexual reference for your gathering, and believe me, with a term like Netroots, there are a zillion of them, but that just isn’t how I roll).  I’ll be the guy selling “free range cocktails” from the pushcart on the street.

UPDATE:  I missed one:

Netiquette: From Polite to Pit Bull, Where Do You Cross the Line?

FRI, 11/20/2009 – 3:30PM, Phalen Room

We all have candidates we love and candidates we hate. Now it’s time to have an open and frank discussion about how to help our favorites online. Does being polite get you ignored? Does being a pit bull make people hate the candidate as much as they hate you? When is it too much, and how to handle abusive commenters? And, as always, learn how what to deal with anonymous trolls on your sites.

PANELISTS: Minnesota Observer, blogger; Mark Giselson, Kurt Schiebel, blogs as Flash

Since the vast majority of leftybloggers are anonymous trolls (there are exceptions, but I’m talking the rule here), that discussion will be either very short and dry or very, very long and animated.

As far as that “Does being polite get you ignored? Does being a pit bull make people hate the candidate as much as they hate you?”  Well, Flash has the “polite” thing generally down, so I’m going to guess Gisleson is supposed to be the “pit bull”.  To which I’d love to ask – where does “pit bull” start, and “profane and overbearing” end?

And as far as “does it make the candidate hate you” – they really should be interviewing the Dump Bachmann people and, for an extra perspective, people from Bachmann’s office.  I’m fairly convinced that the Dump contributed at least a point to both of Bachmann’s victory margins; between them and the City Pages fairly loathsome cover story this week, I think there’s a two point floor right there that the lefthsphere has given the good Representative.

SCENE:  11AM in the editorial board room of Minnesota-based politics blog MNPublius.

ZACK: (sitting in an overstuffed leather chair, sipping from a snifter of brandy as SEAN walks into the conference room).  Hey, Sean.  How’s it going?

SEAN: (pouring a scotch as he takes a seat by the highly-polished oak table) – Hey, Zack.  Just looking at the resumes from all of Dusty Trice’s minions.  Now that he’s closed shop, they’re all looking for work.

ZACK:  Huh.  (takes a sip, as SEAN feeds a ream of  resumes into a nearby paper shredder).  Where’s Matt? 

ZACK:  He’s texted me.  He’s just coming in from the parking ramp.  He had to get the Prius fixed.

SEAN: Ah. 

(JEFF enters the room, takes seat)

ZACK:  So what’s new, gentlemen?

SEAN:  Well, I spent Friday trading emails with Paul Harris of the London Observer.  He’s doing a piece on female conservatives, and he heard we were the authorities on Michele Bachmann.

ZACK:  And he didn’t go to Dump Bachmann? 

SEAN:  He’s a Brit journalist, but he’s not insane.

ZACK: Excellent!  So did you send the new glossy talking point sheet?

SEAN: Yep, the one that calls ’em all crazy and dangrous.  Or dangerous and crazy.  I forget.  Anyway,  I had to break open a new box of them, but yes.  I did. 

MATT: (enters room, yelling over shoulder as he takes a seat) And Consuela?  Have all my calls and texts held.  And get me a double-skim goat chai, stat!

CONSUELA (from anteroom) Si, senor Matt!

MATT:  Hey, guys.

ZACK:  Hey, Matt.  And did you send the ugliest picture of Bachmann you could find?

SEAN:  Oh, yeah.  I had to dig deep, but I finally found one that almost was too bad to be an Avidor photoshop. 

JEFF (sotto voce to MATT): “Avidor?”

MATT: Ken Weiner.

ZACK:  And you gave him a phone interview?

SEAN:  Er, huh? 

ZACK:  A phone interview.  We always do phone inter…

SEAN: Right.  The phone interview, I know.  I thought Jeff was doing the interview?

JEFF:  Um, no – I thought Matt was doing it.

MATT:  Um, no, I was busy doing oppo research on “Ben” and “Mall Diva”.  Er, hang on – Zack, I thought you handled all foreign media…

ZACK:  Oh, crap.  That means…

CONSUELA:  (Enters room, carrying bundle of newspapers) I brought the newspapers, sirs.  (places them on table, backs from room).

ZACK: (leaps to feet, looking agitated, thrashes through pile of papers) Independent…Independent…Indep…AH!  Here it is!  (flips through paper as SEAN, JEFF and MATT gather behind him to read).

SEAN:  There it is!

MATT:  Oh, crap:

 “It is hard to think that people take her seriously. But on a national level it is happening. It scares me,” said Aaron Landry, a senior correspondent at MNpublius.com, a Minnesota-based politics blog.

ZACK:  “Senior Correspondent?” 

MATT: {{Facepalm}}

SEAN:  Who the hell told him to call himself…

JEFF: Jeezus, Landry – you’re a blogger! 

MATT:  Good goddess; he’s Fecke’d us.

ZACK: (yells out the door) Consuela!  Get Cartman on the line!

SEAN:  (takes long drink, puts down glass, holds head in hands) Oh, man – we’re never gonna live this down.

(And scene).

As expected, Andy Birkey of the Minnesoros “Independent” was at last week’s “Appeal to Heaven” fundraiser for You Can Run But You Can Not Hide, a Christian group that evangelizes in the most hostile environment in America today – public schools.  (Pointless and unneeded disclosure that serves more as inter-station out-shouting: YCRBYCNH’s Bradlee Dean and Jake MacMillan co-host Sons of Liberty, on AM1280, which follows Ed and I on Saturday afternoons).

Everyone expected Birkey to show up, because the special guest speaker was Rep. Michele Bachmann.  If Rep. Bachmann stops for a hamburger, the “Independent” is there.

Now, I didn’t attend the event – I had a school thing for one of my kids to go to.

But I was drawn to this bit here in Birkey’s coverage (with emphasis added by me):

The almost exclusively white crowd had assembled at the Sheraton ballroom in Bloomington to raise funds for the ministry

“Almost exclusively white?”

Part of me wonders if Birkey can qualify or quantify the phrase “almost exclusively white”.  How many non-white people were there?  One?  Ten? Five percent?  How does one contextualize “almost exclusively white” in a state that is, let’s remember, almost exclusively (over 90%) white (about four percent black, three percent Asian and about a fifth of a percent Hispanic).

The other part of me wants to stand on a soapbox and remind the world…

…that however “almost exclusively” white the crowd at YCRBYCNH’s rally may have been, it is and shall always be less so than the white, college-educated, middle-class staff of the Minnesoros “Independent” will ever be.  The Mindy’s staff, with the brief exception of Abdi Aynte, has always been vastly whiter than Minnesota as a whole.

For those of you who keep count of such things.

Fox News got busted altering photos of Rep. Bachmann’s rally to make it look bigger than it was.  (As if getting 10,000 people from around the country to turn out on almost no notice was any mean feat).

Bad Hannity.  Bad boy.  Give your radio show to someone else in penance.  Like me.

But isn’t the left just a tad disingenuous in baying “foul” at the moon over using pictures to lie?  Laura, writing at the Greenroom, has been keeping a list and checking it twice:

• The use of carefully cropped photos to make Republicans and conservatives look sinister.
• Using photos with inconvenient truths like stage management and Communist symbols cropped out.
• The denigrating, sexist focus on Sarah Palin’s shoes, especially shots angled to have someone appear to be looking up her skirt.
• Years of tightly cropped photos of anti-war and pro-illegal immigration protests to make crowds seem larger or to hide the Mexican flags.
• The Obama halo photos.
• The media’s habit of passing by hundreds or thousands of sane people and zeroing in on Truthers and other whack jobs at tea party protests.
• Shamelessly edited video. To say nothing of Keith Olbermann.
• And the most damning indictment of all: the open secret of Pallywood.  Instead of exposing this travesty of journalism, our media routinely uses blatantly dishonest anti-Israel imagery.

There is no excuse for what Fox News did, and I’m glad they were caught at it.  I’m not aware of anyone on the right defending it.  But spare me the outrageously outrageous outrage, lefties.  You don’t have a leg to stand on.

Always remember Berg’s Seventh Law – when they accuse conservatives of hatred or perfidy, they’re projecting.

…how, starting with the NYTimes and the WaPo, and then filtering down through the HuffPo and the Daily Kos…

…and thence downward through MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC…

…and then through “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, the “Ed Schultz” and “liberal knockoff of Laura Ingraham” “Stephanie Miller” shows…

…and from there down through the morass of the leftyblogosphere, the “TBoggs” and “Think Progresses”, “PZ Meyerses” and “Minnesota Independents”…

…the meme will spread over the course of the next few days…

 …that “Republicans do as they are told”.

P.S.:  Mr. President?  Stop campaigning!  You are, ostensibly, everyone’s President.

For another three and a quarter years, anyway.

…but he doesn’t write about it.

At least not on Nick Coleman | Unbound and Unbowed blog, which is also Unupdated.

To: Paid “independent” “alternative” water-carriers for George Soros (et. al)

From: Mitch Berg, actual independent

Re:  Your Latest Meme

So first, we had “truther” – people, usually Democrats (including, during the 2004 election, as many as a third of Democrats, according to one survey which, to be fair, didn’t distinguish between respondents with questions and the real true believers), who believe that George W. Bush and the US government were behind 9/11.

Then came the “birthers” – people, usually Republicans (including, during the past election, as many as a quarter of Republicans, according to one survey which, to be fair once again, didn’t distinguish between true believers and those who are merely curious about the flap about Obama’s birth certificate), who question President Obama’s constitutional qualification to be President.

The meme is thus set; taking an oddball conspiracy, tacking “-er” onto the end to connote a sense of unthinking, unreasoning credulity, even insanity.

Which brings us to the latest manifestation of this meme – the “Tenther“.

Of course, while 9/11 and Birth Certificate conspiracies are easily and often hilariously debunked, the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution has the inconvenient properties of being both part of the United States Constitution and, as it happens, an inconvenient hurdle (for those who see the Constitution as “hurdles” to big government) to the current Administration’s more gigantistic plans (i.e., most of them).
Which explains, I suspect, the Alinskier and Soroser fingerprints on the whole meme.  Otherwise, the left’s most-considered response is “States Rights?  Why, that means you favor slavery!”

That is all-er.

A generation of left-wing agitation directly led to violence in the streets of Pittsburgh this week.

The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held.The protesters banged on drums and chanted “Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop.”

The marchers included small groups of self-described anarchists, some wearing dark clothes and bandanas and carrying black flags. Others wore helmets and safety goggles.

One banner read, “No borders, no banks,” another, “No hope in capitalism.” A few minutes into the march, protesters unfurled a large banner reading “NO BAILOUT NO CAPITALISM” with an encircled “A,” a recognized sign of anarchists.

Violence, injuries and much property damage ensued. 

This sort of violence is the inevitable, direct result of the kind of rhetoric we’re getting from the left:

• Michael Moore’s assaults on “capitalism”
• The rhetoric of the likes of Keith Ellison and Dennis Kucinich – prominent Democratic/leftist legislators
• The demonstrations at the homes of AIG executives by groups of rent-an-outragers (we call them “TeabAIGers”), who made it very clear that the political is utterly personal
• The writings of vital lefty pundits like Nick Coleman and their disparaging references to “Big Cheeses”…
• The anti-business rhetoric of the likes of Andy Stein of the SEIU.
• The demonization of conservative causes, groups, and even thoughts by Janet Napolitano

…and many, many more, it’s clear to me that it’s inevitable that the left’s rhetoric on the economy is not only going to lead directly to violence; it’s already led there.

(more…)

The Event:  While bowling, David Strom knocked down all but the 8 and 9 pin, and then – improbably – picked up the spare.

The Shorter Shot In The Dark: David Strom rolled a spare.

The Shorter True North: David Strom rolled a spare. (Comment on this post over at Shot In The Dark)

The Shorter Scott Johnson: In a scene reminiscent of the pandemonium after Jimi Hendrix’ tour de force at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, our good friend David Strom did to the pins what he’s spent a career doing to the opponents of Milton Friedman.

The Shorter Dump Bachmann: I bet it was actually Michele Bachmann dressed in a Strom suit.  Developing… 

The Shorter MNPost: We asked U of Minnesota Political Science professor Larry Jacobs to put Strom’s score in context for us…

The Shorter Ed Morrissey: David Strom rolled a spare – but he shouldn’t pin his hopes on a career as a bowler.

The Shorter Minnesota Progressive Project: David Strom knocked down 17 pens, just like Chimpy McBushitler knocked down teh Twin Towers.

The Shorter Lori Sturdevant: David Strom rolled a spare. Elmer Anderson, a real Minnesota Republican, would have left a few pins for Democrats to pick up.

The Shorter Dusty Trice: David Strom attacks mob!

I do try to get along with people.  Even liberals.  Even leftybloggers.  Part of it is that I grew up a liberal, in a liberal family; I’m not one of those who sees liberals as an evil “enemy”, necessarily – because I used to be one of them, and I was no more “evil” or “enemy” then than I am now. 

And there are some good leftybloggers out there.  I’ve called them out when I see them. 

Which doesn’t change the fact that the Twin Cities’ leftysphere is one of the world’s mother lodes of Mittyesque fantasy, deranged paranoia, hopelessly hatred-addled ranting masquerading as “thought”, and (at the end of the day) mindless passing-on of what ones’ superiors want passed on.

But every once in a while, a leftyblog tries to actually “report” the “news”.

Now, as I noted last weekend, a couple of minions from Dustrytrice.com (a DFLer whose blog is to Minnesota Democrats Exposed as Debbie Gibson was to Chrissie Hynde) were busy videotaping GOP gubernatorial candidates’ appearances on the NARN last weekend.   They stood there for two hours, getting vid of Paul Kolls, Pat Anderson and Marty Seifert and, as I got off the air, I saw they were getting ready to film Laura Brod.

I mentioned this to Laura, who is the sort of irrepressible conservative that will no doubt get her labelled as “crazy” by the DFL noise machine in fairly short order here.  Always looking for a scrap, she walked over to introduce herself to the camera guys.

And I thought “Hm.  I wonder how this is going to come out?”  I already had a hint; earlier, Trice had twittered that the utterly mild-mannered Paul Kolls – easily the lowest-key of the four three and a half gubernatorial hopefuls – was “hateful”.  I figured “this is gonna be a doozy”.

So I was mildly shocked to read Trice saying that Brod – who is nothing if not a good GOP trooper – had “said”:

Over the busy opening weekend a few DUSTYTRICE.COM tipsters were volunteering to help tape over at the Patriot Radio booth. They caught up with Rep. Laura Brod as she was getting ready to go on air. One of the tipsters mentioned that none of the GOP candidates were speaking at the GOP booth.

Well, according to Laura Brod they aren’t letting them speak.

Huh. 

Well, I took the liberty of talking with Brod before our NARN interview yesterday, and emailing her this morning just to make sure.  And while the both communications were off the record, let’s just assure you that that was not what Laura Brod said.  She said nothing about the GOP not “allowing” candidates to speak at the booth.

So what I want to know is why the MN GOP is preventing their candidates from speaking to the 1.6 million Minnesotans at the Fair?

And what I want to know is, given that Brod said nothing of the sort, and Dustrytrice.com has absolutely no corroboration of this rather odd charge, where does this curious claim come from? 

Oh, yeah.

We know their booth is only seeing light traffic,

[althought not nearly as light as the DFL’s; I spend two hours a day watching the place from my vantage point across the street at the Patriot booth; it’s a morgue, even though it’s at one of the highest traffic intersections at the fairgrounds.  And I’m seeing easily 2-3 times as much GOP swag and flair as I am DFL as I wander a, which is a huge turnaround from last year] 

 so are the GOP party bosses afraid nobody will be there to listen? Are they worried that the extremist right-wing candidates (Pat Anderson, Tom Emmer) may drag down the more moderate candidates (Bill Haas)?

Nah, Dusty.  In the age of Obama, conservatism is not a drag. 

I’ve been blogging for seven and a half years; I was a couple of years ahead of the “fad” curve, for once in my life.

And when it comes to political blogs, I think the various blog cultures reflect their owners.  Liberals, being primarily herd creatures, are very hierarchical in their blogging; if you follow a lot of leftyblogs (and I do), you can almost see the memes starting with Kos and Atrios and the Huffpo, and work their way down through the ranks (and I use the term “ranks” intentionally).  Conservatives, being basically decentralized (one could almost say “rudderless”, at times in the past half-decade) have approach blogging in a much less organized way – but the underlying current among conservative blogs has been less to serve as a political engine than as a form of “samizdat” alternative media to outflank what conservatives perceive (correctly) to be the bias and in-the-bag nature of the mainstream media.  That is, of course, a much more scattered approach.

And for people who make their living at this, it’s a distinction that matters.

Of course, the mainstream media is the last group of people that can really understand that, but when organizations like CNN try to write about the subject:

“While it is obvious the progressive blogosphere is superior, we are being out-organized on Twitter,” said Gina Cooper, a blogger who helped organize Netroots Nation, an annual gathering of online liberal activists that met last week in Pittsburgh. “There is some catching up to do on the progressive side.”

It took me a moment push  my skull back into my head when I read that – but once I did, it made sense, in context (where “context” means “with the parameters of the discussion shoved into a nearly meaningless corner”).  Liberal bloggins is superior, as a medium for delivering votes to Democrats.  Until the likes of the Center for “Independent” Media and other “Progressive” groups started pouring money into leftyblogging, either directly or via providing cushy full-time blogging jobs for leading leftybloggers, the lefty blogosphere was a morass of banal, unfocused, Bush-deranged rage.  With money and leadership, the leftysphere became a tightly focused array of banal, Bush-deranged rage aimed at raising money and turning out voters.

Of course, in the leftyphere focuses on opinion and organization, not on serious analysis or reporting.  There is no leftyblog analog to, say, Powerline’s shredding of Dan Rather’s hit piece on President Bush’s Air National Guard record.

But viewed purely as organizing?  The piece has a point.  For conservatives, the blogosphere is largely a replacement for the morning newspaper. Most of us are not fundemantally politcal people – we want government out of our lives, not at the center.  So keeping our “organizing” down to 140 characters or less makes perfectly good sense.

Of course, being CNN, there has to be a certain aspect of “they have now idea what they’re talking about” endemic in the piece: 

“Twitter is a news funnel,” she said. “Conservatives are very tightly knit and getting their message out very well.”

“Conservatives are tightly knit?”  That, of course, is madness.  At this juncture in American history, “conservative” is about as meaningful as, say, “caucasian”; just as any descriptor that covers everything from Icelandic people to Berbers, from Slavs to Spaniards is basically so broad as to be meaningless, so “conservative” is today.  Any label that covers the fiscal moderate but evangelical pro-life Mike Huckabee and the tax and immigration hawk Tom Tancredo, or the fiscal conservative but socially pragrmatic Tim Pawlenty, lacks a certain degree of focus.

But the piece has a point; whatever conservatives lack these days in terms of ideological congruency, we are (finally) making up, after two slack cycles, in paying attention and waking up and smelling the coffee and getting out and into politics again, not because of but in spite of the leadership we’ve had – or lacked – in the past six years or so.

And – hopefully – realizing that no matter what your key issue, having any conservative in office, even a conservative that is imperfect on your pet issue, is going to be a better bet than having even the “best ” (hypothetical) Democrat.

The conservative twittersphere is more than adequate – as the article notes – in saying “show up” and “send money”.  As to the “why?”

Well, for that we still have the long-form blog.  And at that, the CNN piece notwithstanding, the conservative blogosphere still excels alone.

I’ve been grappling with a theological conundrum.  Perhaps you can help me.

Is God so omnipotent that he could invent a phrase so stupid that even Fast Eddie Schultz wouldn’t say it?

Liberal radio talk show host says right-wing talkers and conservatives want to see Obama “get shot.”

I’m a person of faith, but if God’s limits could possibly be tested, this is it.

Because if “Stupid” were a church and a theology, Schultz would be its doctinally-infallible pope.

Last year, when the Strib went through its big show of cost-cutting in the Columnist Corner at Strib Tower, some of us dared to hope that with Nick Coleman being eased out (maybe), things might change.  That the “city columnist” slot might turn into something other than a relentless shill space for the DFL.

But then they brought in Jon Tevlin.  In other words, same old thing.

How little have things changed?  Read yesteday’s piece.  Everything we grew to know and “love” about Coleman? The selective omission of context?  The bending of facts to fit a poltical agenda?  The “say something outrageous, secure in the knowledge that I know stuff and the peasants daren’t gainsay me!” school of opinion writing?

It’s all still there.

Oh, it starts out benignly enough:

Why do our children always disappoint us? We spend 18 years carefully teaching and molding our kids, hoping they avoid the mistakes we made, praying they become upstanding, hard-working adults…Still, we lecture: Join the Army, don’t join the Army. Become a doctor, not a teacher. And for heaven’s sake, don’t go into journalism.I heard that one, and like many kids, ignored the wisdom of my parents.

Because newspaper journalism has always been the career equivalent of wearing a nose ring?I digress; Tevlin is writing about the decision by Harrison Bachmann – son of Representative Michele Bachmann, CD6 congresswoman and target of the left’s most unseemly permanent rage – to join “Teach for America”, an affiliate of “Americorps”.

Maybe it’s the Lord’s way of keeping the world upright?…So it has to sting right now for Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Here’s what Bachmann said about President Obama’s plan to expand AmeriCorps, a program that puts young adults to work making the world a better place by teaching disadvantaged kids and helping the poor:

“[It’s] under the guise of quote, volunteerism, but it’s not volunteers at all,” she said on the Sue Jeffers radio show in April. “It’s paying people to do work on behalf of government. There are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people get trained in the philosophy the government puts forward and then they have to go work in these politically correct forums.

“As a parent, I would have a very, very diffiult time seeing my children do this.”

In other words, Tevlin sees this as Harrison sticking a thumb in Mom’s eye.  Why?  Because it fits the template; Jon Tevlin and everyone he knows hates Michele Bachmann and everything she stands for; therefore, everyone must hate her, and everything Rep. Bachmann does must be suffused with perfidy.
Really.  Everything.  Including the workings of her family life – because we all know that the family of every family-values-flogging Christian Conservative, especially the women, look more like an episode of Moral Orel than anything like the rest of our lives!  Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant!  Larry Craig – wide stance wide stance wide stance hahahahahahah!  And Harrison Bachmann has signed up with something Michele criticized!:

The last application deadline was in February, and successful candidates were notified within two months, according to Kerci Marcello Stroud, national communications director of TFA.So when Bachmann issued her screed, her son might have already been accepted, and certainly would have applied. Ouch.

<>“Ouch”.  Because of course any decision Harrison makes just has to be a political dagger aimed at his mother’s heart.  Just like young Jon mortified his parents by becoming a newspaper reporter.  It all fits!Except that it doesn’t.  Listen to the Jeffers broadcast.  I transcribed the relevant part – badly, but it should give you the right idea:

The original language of the bill was “Mandatory service” for government. right now, the language is voluntary, but just last week a Democrat colleague introduced language to make it mandatory. I believe when it’s all said and done that there’s a very real chance that young people could be put into mandatory service, and there’s a real concern that there are provisiions for what I’d call “re-education camps” for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosphy that the govenrment puts forward, and then they have to go and work in some of these politically correct forums…it appears there’s a political agenda behind all of this, and if young poeple are mandated to go into this, I’d have a very, very difficult time watching my children do this. Again, it’s a huge power grab, and at a cost of billions of dollars.

Listened to in context, it’s fairly clear that it’s not “volunteerism”, much less the volunteers or the jobs they do, that Bachmann is attacking; it’s the politicization of the program.  She would hate to see her, or anyone’s, children used as raw material in a politicized compulsory service scheme.

Which the Democrats want to make it.

In the future.

Thank you, Harrison, for your service. Here’s hoping you inspire kids to dream, and get inspired in the process.

Who knows, maybe you’ll even have an opportunity for a teaching moment with some political leaders, but I doubt it.

And who knows, Harrison; maybe you can teach a high school journalism class.  Where you can teach young kids to get their facts straight and refrain from superimposing their mindsets onto other people, in order to skew and caricature them.  But I…

…no, that would be a cheap shot, wouldn’t it?

To:  Tarryl Clark, DFL Candidate for MNCD6 nomination

From: Mitch Berg, un-American dissenter.

Re:  Public Image? Limited!

Dear Ms. Clark,

You’re running for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District.  It’s a fairly conservative district with some fairly liberal enclaves.  It’s obviously a district in major contention – but Michele Bachmann, the most unrepentant conservative in Minnesota politics, squeedged out a three point margin against not only Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenberg, but against a full court press from the mainstream media, the liberal cableocracy, and the nutroots.

Which says to me – though I am, I’ll grant, merely a simple peasant – that the Sixth is probably not a mother lode for nutroots campaigning.

So please, Ms. Clark; please please please keep campaigning away on Daily Kos.  I sincerely beg of you.

Someone emailed me this job posting:

The Minnesota Independent is seeking freelance reporter/bloggers to help cover politics at the state, county and local levels.
We’re looking for people from across Minnesota with reporting experience; a clear understanding of policy, legislation and the workings of state politics; and familiarity with recent developments in online news. A key criterion in measuring success will be the delivery of “impact stories” that inspire public debate and advance the common good.

This must be good news for Republicans; in the wake of the Obama onslaught, the “Independent” laid off most of its staff and whacked its freelance budget, causing former editor Steve Perry to be shocked, shocked that the whole operation was a propaganda operation.

If the Mindy’s usualy cast of donors feel the need to crank up the propaganda war, we must be drawing rhetorical blood…

Here’s the funny part (emphasis added):

The Minnesota Independent is part of a growing online network sponsored by the non-profit and non-partisan Center for Independent Media,

Non-partisan?

This quote from Britt Robson, after he got laid off in the CIM’s “Mission Accomplished” celebration:

Robson — who writes about arts for MinnPost and sports for The Rake — was caustic in his view [of] MnIndy’s Capitol overlords. He says CIM’s national staff was less interested in the organization’s professed mission — “a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that operates an independent online news network in the public interest” — than boosting the party of Barack Obama.

“I was working with them fairly closely during the Republican convention and privy to interoffice emails,” Robson explains. “The type of things non-local editors were into were very party-race stories, particularly stories that embarrassed Republicans and promoted Democrats.”

Paul Schmelzer – you’re a good writer.  You’re a reporter with some integrity.  Why on earth are you maintaining the fiction of non-partisanship?

which adheres to the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ) code of ethics…

Obvious jokes redacted for excessive obviousness.

Hey, maybe Perry can come back now!

…especially any of you that have ever used the term “teabagger” to refer to a conservative exercising his/her free speech, and/or written any conservative grass-roots action off to “astroturfing”:

1. So I take it you’ll be ignoring all of the “research” and “data” coming from Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota from now on.  Right?  Because y’all seem to take them pretty seriously today, even though the “group” is essentially one woman, Dr. Rebecca Thoman (who is an OBGYN, not an emergency room trauma surgeon, by the way), and her majordomo, Heather Martens.  If they go to a demonstration, and they call on their “friends” at “Million Mom March”, they may draw half a dozen people, mostly out-of-work professional activists.  Indeed, various second-amendment activist friends relate stories of going to C”S”M meetings where shooter “ringers” outnumbered the anti-gun activists by several to one – where “one” is an absolute number, not a ratio.
2. Let’s accept, for the moment, that all of the conservative response at Town Hall meetings, and all of the Tea Parties, are in fact being coordinated by some cabal of right-leaning “astroturf” groups.  OK – so what?  Do you think that just because someone sets a meeting and says “let’s protest”, that it’ll draw a crowd?  Especially a crowd of conseratives – people who never come out to picket, wave signs or chant slogans?  With Democrats, of course, it’s ture – to paraphrase Fred THompson in The Hunt for Red October, Democrats don’t take a restroom break without some gropu gtelling them where to go or what to do.  But conservatives?  Election day is the biggest “demonstration” most conservatives ever make it to, ever, their lives.  So even if  there were some shadowy cabal out there, what makes you think people would come to the town halls and tea parties if the anger wasn’t very , very genuine?  You can start an astroturf group – but that doesn’t mean people will come, and bring the passion that the anti-Obamacare dissidents bring.  Just watch a “Million Mom” or “Code Pink” or ACORN demonstration for proof.

Of course, you do know that’s the truth – which is why the campaigns to mock, dismiss and intimidate these outbursts are being coordinated from the White House itself.
But since “astroturf” is newly “un-american”, I figured I’d give all you stalwarts in the lefty alt-media a chance to show your consistency.

Go to it!

About a week ago, the left was all-atwitter at the thought that Sarah and Todd Palin – evangelical fundamentalist “Family Values” conservatives – were getting divorced.  These were largely the same people who found it delightfully ironic that the Palins – being pro-lifers – would have a daughter who’d get pregnant while 17.

Of course, there’s dead silence now that Dan Riehl and Stacy McCain blew the lid completely off the entire fabricated hatchet-job story:

Just in case anyone has arrived late at this news, here are links to major items, arranged in chronological order, in the development of the “Gryphen”/Griffin story:

• Aug. 1: “Palin Divorce Gossip ‘Completely False'” — American Spectator
• Aug. 1: “Quote From Sarah Palin” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 1: “If Your Mother Says She Loves You, Check It Out” — American Spectator
• Aug. 2: ‘Mommy, Why Does My Kindergarten Teacher Lie About Sarah Palin?’ — The Other McCain
• Aug. 2: “Is This Sarah Palin’s Gryphen?” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 3: “Don’t Threaten Dan, Griffin” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 4: “E-Mail to Jesse Griffin” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 4: “Jesse Griffin: Troubling Revelations” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 5: “Jesse Griffin’s Been Lying to His Friends, Too?” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 5: “Jesse Griffin Explained” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 5: “Jesse Griffin Just Keeps Lying” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 5: “Give Jesse Enough Rope” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 5: “Jesse Griffin: Latest Developments” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 5: “Real Facts, Riehl Theory” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 6: “Exit, Lying: School’s Out for Anti-Palin Blogger Jesse Griffin” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 6: “Of Moonbats and ‘Minions'” — The Other McCain
• Aug. 6: “What Is Jesse Griffin Telling Us?” — Riehl World View
• Aug. 7: “Why Did Jesse Quit the Kindergarten?” — Riehl World View

Of course, when it comes to media attacks on conservatives, truth isn’t realy a requisite.
Any of you “Yaaay, the HIPPOCRETS are getting divorced!” folks out there have a comment?