TOP BANGKOK

posted at 12:45 pm on August 11, 2011 by Tina Korbe

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So far, the Hot Air Express’ schedule in Ames looks like this: One campaign event down, several more to go, plus the big draws of the debate and straw poll. But, all of a sudden, no event looks to be more exciting than the Iowa State Fair Friday — and not just because a certain spotlight-coveting, fun-loving Alaskan will be there.

According to the fair’s motto, “nothing compares.” Butter sculptures! Big-name entertainment! Fair food! It’s really not that hard to figure out why Sarah Palin would want to be there. Sure, she wants to stoke speculation that she might still run for the presidency (even though my suspicion is that she won’t), but she suggests she also just wants to stick it to a president who admonished the American people to “eat their peas”:

In an email to supporters, Palin said she was “excited to try some of that famous fried butter-on-a-stick, fried cheesecake-on-a-stick, fried twinkies, etc.”

“I’ll enjoy them in honor of those who’d rather make us just ‘eat our peas’!” she said, in a dig at President Obama.

Can you really blame her for wanting to eat a fried Twinkie? (Michelle Obama could and would, of course — before she’d go back to drinking her milkshake — but that’s neither here nor there.)

Of course, Palin won’t be the only prominent politician to appear at the fair. Mitt Romney will speak at the opening ceremonies today and Michele Bachmann will speak Friday, just before the crucial straw poll. But Palin does have the distinction of being the only prominent Republican non-candidate to put in an appearance.

Fair food and speculation-stoking aside, why, really, does Palin plan to attend? From the sound of the ad she released alongside her bus tour relaunch, it might be for the purely patriotic reason of expressing pride in small-town America. It could be for self-aggrandizement, for the pleasure of standing in the spotlight just because she can. It could be for a wholly unexpected reason — an endorsement, for example (although that seems highly unlikely). Maybe Palin decided to appear as a favor to the openly campaigning candidates in Iowa who will be somewhat overshadowed by Rick Perry’s announcement Saturday. After all, her considerable weight guarantees media coverage to the state that was supposed to be the uncontested center of attention this weekend before Perry’s people leaked his plans.

But regardless of why Palin planned this particular trip to Iowa, thinking about her in relation to this appearance makes me realize she is, herself, a little like the Iowa State Fair in that she is entirely in a class of her own. Like it, she boasts excellencies — a large and apparently happy family, signature accomplishments in her home state of Alaska, books, TV appearances, a clearly-and-compellingly-articulated conservative message, beauty, charisma, energy, etc., etc., etc. Like it, she boasts eccentricities — that memorable accent, her reality TV show, the start-and-stop nature of both her governorship and this bus tour, etc., etc., etc. She draws a big crowd, nobody feels indifferently toward her and, sometimes, she palls on even her biggest fans. That, perhaps, is the most important comparison: Just as it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the fair, such that funnel cake tastes sickeningly sweet in your mouth, it is possible to promote, to debate, to discuss Sarah Palin too much (and I know I’m guilty of this, too!), such that she becomes a caricature of herself instead of a real person and even people who like her find the discussion cloying. But she owes it to herself and we owe it to her, too, to remember and acknowledge the reality of Sarah Palin just as often as we remember the myth. Like the rest of us, she’s illuminated by talents, but also marred by flaws. No one compares — and yet everyone does.

posted at 4:45 pm on August 9, 2011 by Allahpundit
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Two clips to usher in night four of Droogfest 2011. The common thread is that in both cases you’re watching rampaging cretins behave in a quasi-civilized manner. In the first, two giggly girls chat calmly with the BBC about the “mad fun” they’re having; in the second, rioters handle a wounded boy gingerly … before proceeding to rob him. Maybe we can let the lot of them off easy with a modified version of the Ludovico technique.

If you missed it in Headlines this morning, read Brendan O’Neill’s essay on the riots as a byproduct of welfare-state decay. At the Corner, Iain Murray elaborates:

    Another left-wing friend of mine in the UK has another interesting theory — that the particular targeting of electronics and clothes shops represents an explosion of consumerism. Stay with me, because I think he has a point and I’d like to explain why. Much of the British underclass has had easy access to credit over the past decade or so — and why not, when they are on a secure income stream of state benefits — and they have spent this for the most part on TVs, video games, and “chav” fashion. That easy credit — which I should emphasize was encouraged by the loose monetary policy of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair — has now dried up, so they are looking to take for free what they previously got for nominal sums. There is more evidence for that conclusion in this BBC recording of two girls saying that the riots were about taking what they wanted, for free…

    I think what we are seeing in Britain is a conflation of two liberal dreams — that of the 1960s, in which parenting and tradition went out the window, and that of the 2000s, in which self-help was replaced by easy credit, benefits, and an all-mighty “health and safety” bureaucracy — together with the unfinished nature of the Thatcher revolution. Mrs. T enabled economic Thatcherism but was unable to finish the project of what I termed social Thatcherism, whereby a free society recognized the importance of what once were called manners.

    The result is a feral underclass without any understanding of tradition from right or left.

O’Neill ends by laying into British cops for their paralysis, a ubiquitous critique in stories about the riots after three days of window-smashing. There are a lot of reasons for that. The police have in fact held back, only now considering water cannons and plastic bullets after millions in damage. The prime minister and the mayor of London were both on vacation when the riots began and Scotland Yard’s leadership recently resigned over the phone-hacking scandal, so for several days there’s been no one in charge. The Home Secretary, who was also on vacation, is prone to saying moronic things like, “The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon, the way we police in Britain is through consent of communities,” even as young degenerates ransack local communities without their consent. And of course it’s comforting in a moment of chaos to focus on the failings of the police, who are, unlike the rioters (oops, I mean “protesters”), accountable to the public. Build a better force and in theory you ensure this can’t happen again. In theory:

    Business owners accused police of adopting a softly-softly approach which left their shops and businesses vulnerable to attack by baying mobs.

    While police were criticised in some quarters for being far too slow to get to riot scenes, officers were accused by shopkeepers in Hackney of standing just yards away from looters as windows were smashed and armfuls of goods were scooped up…

    Firearms units trained to use the rubber bullets are braced in case they are needed. It would be the first time ever the baton rounds have been used in British disturbances.

    Mr Kavanagh said Scotland Yard was ‘not going to throw 180 years of policing with the community away’ as the prospect of using the ammunition for the first time at a British disturbance was raised.

Imagine how bad things could get if they did that. There might be riots.

There are many ways to measure the awfulness of what’s happening but chew on these two while you watch. According to residents in Birmingham, looters are literally stealing the clothes off of people’s backs, stopping them and forcing them to strip. The Daily Mail has a too-bad-to-check photo via Twitter. Beyond that, in the Middle East and elsewhere, there’s gloating going on both by authoritarian governments, who are mocking the Brits for not liquidating all of their troublemakers on the spot, and by the victims of those authoritarian governments, who are mocking the rioters for turning their “protests” into a pretext to steal DVD players. All of which is to say, this is a complete fiasco by any yardstick.

Onto the videos. I’ve included a third (audio) clip below as a little bonus; yes, that is indeed Hulk Hogan’s voice you’re hearing. Click the image to watch.

posted at 1:00 pm on July 24, 2011 by Tina Korbe
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Tim Pawlenty’s campaign manager yesterday sent out an e-mail outlining Pawlenty’s accomplishments and assuring supporters that the former Minnesota governor’s fan club will continue to grow, while enthusiasm for other candidates — most implicitly, Michele Bachmann — will fade.

“In 2008, voters elected a member of Congress with no executive experience. We can’t afford the cost of inexperience any longer, and Iowans are getting that,” Ayers wrote. “[A]s more Republican primary voters start to tune in to the race, they are finding out that the governor’s record and message will stand the test [of] a brutal campaign. Other candidates’ records (or lack thereof), and plans for the future (or lack thereof) won’t.”

Even though Ayers never mentions Bachmann by name, it’s clear she’s the primary object of his statements.

Pawlenty’s persistent picking at Bachmann has drawn so much press attention that some even questioned whether the Pawlenty campaign planted the story of Bachmann’s supposedly “incapacitating” migraines. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin explains how that insinuation — and the Pawlenty campaign’s failure to completely dispense with it — continues to plague Pawlenty’s prospects:

    In essence, the campaign’s defense is that they let the press run with a story without effectively rebutting it. If that is the case, and there is no definitive proof at this point to suggest otherwise, this will only multiply concerns that Pawlenty’s campaign is not firing on all cylinders. In any event, the issue has now created another worrisome distraction for Pawlenty, who has failed to make a dent in the polls and needs to finish near the top of the pack in Ames.

Meantime, Bachmann’s own handling of the headache issue has actually served her well. This weekend, she even slipped in a witty quip about her “condition” during an Iowa appearance:

    Michele Bachmann went beyond her prepared statement about her migraines during an Iowa appearance today, making a joke about the story that dominated the 2012 coverage for much of last week:

    “This week, they were talking about me and headaches. All I want you to know is I’ve been giving a lot more headaches in Washington than I’ve been getting,” she joked to laughter and raucous applause. … “And as president of the United States, I intend to give those big power brokers a lot more headaches, because we’re going to give the country back to you.”

Pawlenty’s persevering criticisms of a competitor continue to betray insecurity. Ed eloquently defended candidates’ rights to question their competitors’ records — and I initially conceded Bachmann’s migraines to be a legitimate cause for concern (at least until her doctor settled the issue definitively) and praised T-Paw’s common-sense quote about the requirements of the presidency — but, at this point, if I were Pawlenty, I would steer as far away from any mention of Bachmann — explicit or implicit — as I could manage. He doesn’t appear to be hurting Bachmann, but he is denting the best shield he has against attacks against him: His reputation as a stand-up guy who’s running on his own merits, not money or a popular image. He’s at his best when he talks policy, not petty quibbles.

posted at 12:00 pm on July 24, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

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President Obama is under attack these days from all manner of nasty conservatives who don’t care for his liberal, big spending ways. They seem to have found an unlikely ally, though, in the person of the only officially declared socialist in Congress… Bernie Sanders. (Emphasis in original.)

    SANDERS: Brian, believe me, I wish I had the answer to your question. Let me just suggest this. I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president; who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. [...] So I would say to Ryan [sic] discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

It’s hard to say how much impact this will have, because traditionally Sanders hasn’t enjoyed a tremendous amount of influence outside his own state. But it is a sign of growing discontent with the political arm of his party. For better or worse, Obama is offering up some spending cuts which will effectively take the legs out from under most of the advertisements congressional Democrats are planning on running next year.

It’s difficult to talk about “Republicans destroying Medicare and Social Security as we know it” during the campaign if the titular leader of your party has just forced a vote on you to cut it yourself. It’s even tougher to talk about the need to “tax the rich” so everyone can “pay their fair share” if your President cuts deals to enact even bigger tax cuts than his predecessor. (Cuts which he already signed on to extending.)

Sanders can’t very well run against Obama himself in a primary since he’s not a registered Democrat. (Though, in theory, he could sign up at any time this year and still do it.) I suppose he’s expecting an actual Democrat to step up to the plate and do it for the sake of stopping Obama from running to the middle in a Clinton like move to secure a second term. Even so, given the President’s currently tanking numbers, I don’t expect a long line of Democratic leaders to step up and attempt this.