To Parapharse the Vice President, "It's a Big Deal!"

We might be witnessing the biggest historical event of our lives. Yes, the biggest event we have ever seen might just be Sarah Palin's bus tour. That's right. The bus tour.

All our lives the priveleged news media have treated us like children. They decided what was appropriate for us to see and not to see. Their wisdom, such that it is, mediated every facet of public discourse. To get our points across we had to grovel before our overlords and if we were good, they might pat us on our heads. The kindly, responsible parents sometimes admonished us for our silly ideas and sent us outside to play.

It wasn't just too long ago that office seekers were required to bow before their lords and ladies and beg for their approval. Was approval granted in a fair and reasoned manner? No! Our social superiors weeded out candidates who did not espouse politically correct positions. It was for our own good, after all. Their judgment is always better than ours.

But then DARPA developed the Internet and the Internet begat Youtube and Facebook and Twitter. Now more than ever, the old media are obsolete. Sarah Palin recognizes their obsolesence and no longer speaks to them. This is significant. This is profound. This is a earth shattering.

If Sarah Palin runs for president, she will be the first serious candidate to deliberately bypass the news media. If the alphabet soup can no longer tilt the table for their favorites, it is a new era. With each passing national election, the media grew more overtly biased. The referees had become the superstars. The 2000 national elections were all about the media. The 2004 elections, even more so. The 2008 elections more than we thought possible. It was all about the pretty boys and their seven (and eight) figure salaries.

Palin stops playing by their rules and the shills go apoplectic. To ignore them is to disrespect them. Who the hell does she think she is? She obviously does not know her place. Their indignation knows no bounds. In 2008, they were the masters of the universe. In 2011, they are wallflowers. Hell hath no fury like a spurned Has Been.

Palin, with the help of social networks, has possibly ushered in a new era. Since the genesis of our republic, we have been at the mercy of the gate keeper media. Now, the gate keeper era might be coming to an end. In the words of Joe Biden, "It's a big fluffy deal."

Insider vs. Outsider. Part 1

For years I refused to participate in political discourse. In the early 80's I loathed "Crossfire" because I did not subscribe to the left vs. right paradigm. Pat Buchanan was not an alternative voice. He was hostile to free trade and a proponent of executive clout. Members of the press all looked alike to me. The power strugggle was not left v. right. Not liberal v. conservative. Not Donkey v. Elephant. It was insider versus outsider. It still is.

I would grow even more cynical when Buchanan, the Beltway hack, would repackage himself as a political outsider. Ultimately he would prove to be as hostile to free trade as Ralph Nader. And yet, he developed a loyal following. Go figure.

At about the time Buchanan was gearing up for a presidential run, GOP apologist Fred Barnes wrote a landmark column in "The American Spectator" telling us to forget about small government conservatism. Big government conservatism is where its's at and we should not shy away from the label. It's all about reaping the spoils of war and procuring plum jobs for our more loyal supporters. It's all about patronage and our hacks are better than your hacks.

Long after Barnes ascends into Conservative Heaven (if that is not an oxymoron) his magnum opus will toll for thee. There is no unringing this bell. It is that rare moment where a deceiver shows his cards. Like a ranking administrator professing their loyalty to Karl Marx or their secret admiration for all things jihad. Yes, we suspect but until they come out and say it, we can only suspect. Barnes unwittingly dug a ditch between the social conservative and the fiscal conservative. That ditch is now a gulf.

It is interesting that the same publication that trumpeted moral bureaucracy would years later print another watershed column by Angelo Codevilla denouncing America's ruling class. Funny how one's perspective can change when one is run out of town on a rail. Has Emmett Tyrrell ssen the light? I doubt it.

How do we define the schism in the Republican Party? We could say that it's a battle between those who want a new ruling class and those who want no ruling class. Krauthammer, Noonan, Will, Rove, et al, meet the Tea Party. The party monarchists will have decide if they prefer the company of their fellow monarchists to the company of the unwashed masses.

For me, if the Obama Campaign trots out Karl Rove as their new political consultant, I will not so much as blink. A billion dollars will buy a ton of souls and the skills of the soulless. It might loook like betrayal but it really isn't. Everything we needed to know about the GOP establishment we learned from Fred Barnes two decades ago.

When You Come To A Fork in The Road...Take it!

Who actually said all of those things attributed to Yogi Berra? I don't know. My understanding of Yogi is that if the quote did not contain a half dozen expletives, it probably originated with someone else. But I like the Yogi character, contrived or genuine.

I come to these forks in the road too often. Too busy to blog? Who the hell is too busy to blog? That's why you blog instead of producing a static website. Anyone can blog. What's your excuse?

It's rare that I ever lose interest in a subject. I am given to enthusiasms and they grab me. It seems that I always want to do a dozen things and it is hard for me to focus on any one thing. What works for me is to narrow my focus and concentrate on one venture at a time.

Of course, this one venture at a time idea involves a certain amount of waiting. Down time. And the voice that says "take the fork in the road" competes with Edison's advice to "hustle while you wait." Hmmm.

Oh and there is work. Mentally draining labor. Long commutes. I shouldn't complain but of course I do. I can grumble with the best of them.

Yes, I so want to get back into action. The events unfolding are monumental. We are seeing, umm how do we say it? A paradigm shift? An awakening? "Something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

I will elaborate in my next post.

Washington Crude

As one of the candidates remarked in last week's Republican debate; " Whenever something good happens there's always a politician ready to take credit for it and when ever something goes wrong there is always a politician to blame someone for it." I wish my memory was good enough to credit that candidate because he hit the mark dead center. Last week President Blood and Guts Obama, to put it kindly, was taking credit for the death of Osama bin Laden. To put it unkindly he was exploiting the death of the late Mr. bin Laden. Then it was off to Texas to blame the Republicans in Congress for the immigration mess that has been his responsibility for the past two years.

Senate Democrats, who couldn't even get a peek of bin Laden's photo, nevertheless praised the courageous President for his guts and determination and pondered their own political opportunities. Not wanting to gloat over the underhanded passage of Obamacare and not really sure if they wanted to tout the virtues of the Dodd-Frank bill when it might blow up in their faces by making the big Wall Street banks uncompetitive in global finances they scoured the Drudge Report for news of any impending disaster they might exploit. Eureka! Gasoline prices were approaching $4. per gallon.

Immediately the CEO's of the 5 largest oil companies were summoned to a hearing to be scolded, scorned, and mau maued. Yes, it was time big oil paid its fair share. And what was its fair share? Unlike General Electric, the jolly giant of green energy who paid no US taxes these companies paid an effective tax rate of 47% in foreign and US taxes. The scam proposed legislation the kindly Senators have in mind is to not allow these 5 companies to take credit on taxes paid to foreign countries thus exposing these companies to double taxation who, unlike General Electric, friend of all good Democrats, repatriate every cent of their foreign earnings. Unlike General Electric, great friend of President Obama, they would gladly hire Americans to drill for and refine oil right in these United States instead of manufacturing windmills in the Philippines instead of Ohio.

Senator Chuck Schumer, whose largest coup-d'etat was the deliberate crashing of Indy bank in 2008 by pointing out its shaky balance sheet, oiled his way through the hearing and expressed outrage that Jim Mulva of Conoco Phillips had labeled the singling out of just 5 companies to bear the cost of double taxation as un American. About half way through the hearing I decided C-Span, although a godsend for greasy senators was a mixed blessing for its viewers and that Sen. Schumer was probably a child pornographer in an earlier life.

I Think It Was The Tall Muslim, Rosie

RosieNorah O'Donnell tweets about someone's death.

CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT!

The Coming Crisis

YOU may talk o' gin an' beer

When you're quartered safe out 'ere,

An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;

But if it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on Viagra,

An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it

US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nancy Grace Susan Rice, has charged that Gaddafi troops have been issued Viagra. What next? Flowers and chocolates? According to diplomats who spoke off the record Ms Rice made this accusation in a closed door meeting at the United Nations but offered no proof. Another example of smart diplomacy ? Who, pray tell, advises this woman? Charlie Sheen? Gary Busey? She might have run this theory past the Joint Chiefs of Staff who would have told her no soldier wants to go into battle fully erect and Gaddafi probably didn't hire geriatric mercenaries. Yo, Susan, battle hardened troops face stiff opposition and Gaddafi vows to stick it out in Tripoli.