Cowboy Confessional

Some days I feel like a fool. Other days, a genius.

Today I feel like a prophet.

On the day Hillary — our Carpetbagger in Chief — announced her run for the most powerful job on the planet, I predicted her personality would be her demise. She has always scored low in terms of likability and trust, having the rare skill of alienating people faster than a leper with bad breath. She also has never gained the ability to fake sincerity, something her primary opponent does quite well.

However, those were not the factors on which I predicted her downfall.

My prognostication was that she would break under pressure. Her Highness has long had anger management issues, and was reported to violently snap at Socks the cat as well as Bill the tomcat. Presidential campaigns are pressure cookers and likely to bring even tempered people to a boil. Hillary’s simmering self was bound to bubble over, and through the magic of television, drive even the feminist out of her camp (after all, the only people who hate catty women more than men are other women).

I had expected a volcanic eruption from her. Instead she delivered series of panicked attempts to drown, demean, and denigrate that came across as simultaneously desperate and disingenuous. You would think that being associated with world-class character actors and trained liars, that her coaching would have made her more competent in the same. But, perhaps Bill was too busy banging the paid help (again) to create a viable candidate.

Take the last debate … please. She opens the show complaining about always getting the first and toughest question, then says she’s doesn’t mind. This duplicitous disclaimer was self-contradictory. Worse still her expression while delivering that line — a fake smile nailed onto her face slightly above chin level — showed she very much minded. In effect she contradicted herself twice in once statement.

That beats Hill’s Hubby’s best by one full falsity.

Then she got snide, indirectly mocking Obama by referencing a TV comedy skit about the free ride Barack gets from the media. This was another double disaster. Not only did she show her poorly sharpened claws, she insulted the press.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

If the press hates anything more than a non-liberal, it’s being accurately insulted. What little grace the media was willing to afford the Pantsuit Parading Parasite vanished on the swords of their pens. From now until she makes her concession speech, her former friends in the media will expose every gaff she makes and every crippling weakness in her campaign.

Speaking of Bill, I noticed that almost every major news channel has in the past two days has run an brief exposé on how the former Commander Philander sank Hillary’s campaign. It is debatable if the campaign’s death was a murder, suicide, or a combo package. Regardless, the media keeps bringing up Bill’s major race-baiting misstep in South Carolina, and how he appeared to be running for the office himself. These interstitial investigations were framed in the context of Bill killing Hillary.

Had we not all expected just the opposite?

Thankfully the fun is not over. The race remains tight enough that her campaign could toss a few “fear bombs” and swing skittish voters in Texas (a state with more than a few bigots) and Ohio (a state with more than their fair share of bigots). Between Obama’s half Muslim upbringing, to his half African heritage, Hillary has the option of playing the racist card.

If anyone is capable of sinking that low, it would be a Clinton. Expect a newsworthy weekend.

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I spent the weekend in San Diego in the company of the entire California State Libertarian Party.

No, I was not doing community service.

The Libertarian Party is my favorite party this side of a naked tequila bash with the Hooters Girls. Long ago, while being reluctantly dragged through a gun show (I find most gun shows a snore), I happened across the LP recruiting table. I had known of the LP for a number of years, and managed not to join mainly due to their reputation of harboring overly flamboyant activists. I don’t need the competition.

What converted me was not their positions (I agree with 90% of their platform), or that the Republicans had gone off into the weeds (to join the Democrats). Nor was I intoxicated (frowned upon at events where there are guns and ammo to be had in quantities).

It was a bumper sticker.

Among the LP propaganda littering their table was a bumper sticker that read “I’m Pro-Choice on Everything!” I appreciated the eloquence of the message, and the core meaning would be clear to even a socialist, though a socialist would immediately legislate against printing bumper stickers after seeing this one for themselves.

History aside, I’m reporting today on a phenomenon I witnessed with a degree of disbelief normally reserved for a politician’s campaign promise. I have seen a transformation of the LP that is erasing their formerly hard-earned brand for lovable lunacy and convention binge drinking that is exceeded only by Ted Kennedy on any given weeknight.

The Libertarians are suffering from creeping respectability.

Ignore if you can Starchild’s perpetual sartorial psychosis (this year he came dressed as a pirate, an unfortunate euphemistic choice for a man from San Francisco). Most of the LP faithful in attendance (myself being the notable exceptions) were well dressed, civil, deliberative, and borderline boring. LP membership is slipping steadily into the mainstream, which may make the party less lively, but it will make it more palatable to the public.

This is very bad news for the increasingly non-credible Republicrats. More than one public opinion poll has shown that by and large people simply want to be left alone. After cops, jails, and weekly street cleaning, the average American wants less government. Yet both of the major parties provide more. In other words, Republicans and Democrats alike are ignoring the demand of the market.

Republicrats will soon be the next New Coke.

Not that the fix isn’t in. A big topic of discussion at the LP conclave was the now infamous, and John McCain damming, Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. The very name shows the intent — bipartisan. Two partisan parties, and nobody else is invited. I’ve commented before on both the criminality of this affront to free speech, and the accessory after the fact violations committed by the Supreme Court in support of McCain’s corruption of the Constitution. The act was designed in part to limit the ability of folks like the Libertarians to thrive.

And it ain’t gonna work.

Get enough bulls angry, and they’ll break down any fence you build. Outside of a rodeo, you won’t find a larger pack of pissed off bulls than American voters. The current election is based not on policy but on annoyance. The more Obama and McCain exacerbate the situation, the more people will seek out third parties, and the more the LP gains.

Keep up the good work guys. We’re awaitin’.

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I’ve grown fond of Gary McCoy’s cartoon work. His artistic style has great balance (cartooning is tougher than it looks), and he makes statements that hurt oh so good. Pain, after all, is the basis of humor.

A case in point.

Used by special permission of Gary McCoy © 2008

The truth hurts, doesn’t Mrs. Brady. And Mr. Obama. And Mr. Moore. And Mr. Helmke. And Mr. Sugarman.

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Whenever there is an episode of gun violence, the regular suspect groups all send an email that amplifies their position on gun control. Some have a degree of sense. SAF sent one after the NIU shooting making the typical and correct point that the shooter knew he would not meet resistance because his victims were in a “gun free zone.”

(As an aside, I must ask is the term “gun free zone” really applicable? Seems anyone determined enough to commit mass murder on their suicide day will make the phrase instantly nonsensical.)

On schedule, an email arrived from the Brady Campaign, and was filled with all their typical talking points, with particular emphasis on their financial donation call to action. However, it contained a curious piece of intellectual bait-and-switch, saying:

Congress’ passing and the President’s signing of the NICS improvement Amendments Act to strengthen the Brady background checks system was a positive first step. Now, we need to close the gun show loophole.

For those not attuned to the endless debate on gun control, the Brady’s and other bunches maintain that gun shows are leakage points for guns into the criminal underworld. They repeat this assertion despite evidence indicating gun shows are not a significant outlet.

More to the point, the 2008 Valentine Day Massacre was committed using registered guns bought through normal retail outlets. News reports state that at least two of the firearms in possession by the NIU nut-case were legally owned and supposedly acquire through normal retail channels.

Thus the Brady’s are attempting to skew public perception of a non-problem (gun shows) by inappropriately tying it to a murder committed by a maniac with non-gun-show firearms.
What news channels are also reporting (to my shocked amazement) is that the murdering Mr. Kazmierczak was “off is medication.”  Though the details are not yet fully exposed, this likely means he was withdrawing from one or more psychotropics.

So were Harris and  Klebold when they shot-up Columbine High School.

So were most of the recorded mass shooters in North America over the last two decades.

If people believe guns should be banned because someone might kill another human being with them, then that same logic dictates that psychotropics should be banned as well since withdraw rage (documented by the manufacturers of these drugs) demonstratably does the same.

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The world has lately been watching Berkeley … from afar as one would watch bovine inflicted with “mad cow disease“, also know as rosieodonnellitus.

There has been a public tit-for-tat between anti-war protesters so intellectually bereft that they cannot separate policy makers from soldiers, and chose to protest outside of a Marine Corp recruiting center.

Fair enough. The Marine’s have the right to open a recruiting center wherever they like, and anti-war activists have a right to peacefully protest wherever they wish, including at the same recruiting center.

What went haywire was the Berkeley City Council, if I may indulge in redundancy. They decided to take sides in an otherwise peaceful-though-vocal disagreement. This caused a national uproar. Last Tuesday a confrontation between factions caused a tacit reversal of indignation by the city council.

I recycle all this news in order to illustrate an observation made by a friend of mine who was there, and observed both groups in action. Being a military vet, he was not unbiased in his assessment, but the starkness of the contrast between the festering post-hippie Berkeley dwellers “mentality” and the opposing Marine Corp supporters is vivid. My friend wrote:

The Code Pinkers and Co. were an eclectic bunch. One man wore a dress, many sported dreadlocks or other types of filthy hairdos and most were just plain scruffy. Their group was composed of a mix of leftover 60s radicals and brainwashed youth. Their discourse consisted mostly of invective and profanity. They seemed often confused as to just what the issue was that we were assembled for. On at least one occasion I smelled the cloying scent of weed wafting out of their crowd.

In contrast, our group consisted of a cross-section of normal America. There were men and women of all ages … There were veterans of many wars, from Korea to the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts … and there were college students and teenagers. Most were well dressed, quiet and cooperative. Most impressive to me were the students, both college and high school … They were well-spoken and courteous.

Left-of-center residents of Berkeley are perpetually amazed that the rest of the county thinks Berkeley is collectively nuts. Illustrative is that those opposed to the actions of the Berkeley City Council represent a large cross-section of America. Black, white, Hispanic, old, young. When a large cross-section opposes your beliefs, then you have to question your beliefs, at least in passing.

I know Berkeley, and I know they won’t.

In an innocent sort of way they are benignly introspective, and firmly believe their own hype. Collectively they are incapable intellectual growth in the political realm. Nothing short of strategic defunding, from both the national and state treasuries, will cause Berkley to quit being Berkeley.

The sooner the better.

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