The Return of Sarah Barracuda

Sarah Palin is back, and how. AP reports:

Sarah Palin defended Wisconsin's governor at a tea party tax day rally Saturday, telling hundreds of supporters that his polarizing union rights law is designed to save public jobs.

Of course, the AP then goes on to trash Palin by innuendo and try to slant the story in favor of the lefty union trolls and thugs who inevitably showed up to trash the Tea Partiers. (And note: the AP puts Tea Party in lower case, another one of the hundreds of not-so-subtle, smarmy, casual digs anybody who's not on the left has to endure on almost a daily basis.

Dan Riehl has a little better idea than AP as to what's really going on here. Unlike the "professionals," Riehl has more than a clue as to what this story is really about: leadership.

It's ironic to watch so many so called establishment Republicans who seem to want to be leader of the free world dance their way around the more serious political battles of our time. They criticize, they pontificate, or editorialize, yet from ObamaCare to a budget deal, they're also careful to not too directly engage. The same can be said of them for what has played out in Madison, Wisconsin over the past month.

Whether it's talking about death panels, or blood libel, to now showing up in Madison - that's not former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. As I said to a friend and colleague tonight, wherever the current battle is, that's very often where you can find Palin. One of the first requirements for leadership is to show up out front. No one will ever accuse Palin of not doing that. Doing so also has an interesting side benefit for any would be leader. When you lead, people tend to follow and support you, even if not at first.

Riehl's commentators are interesting, too, although as usual they're invaded by the usual assortment of (probably) paid lefty trolls who trot out the tired blame-Sarah meme--you know, the one where she's a coward and a quitter for resigning as Alaska's governor. Which, as they well know, she did to prevent all the Democrat-supported frivolous lawsuits against her from bankrupting her family--which was their intention.

One commentator ("Judas Priest") runs with this, picking up the cudgels and letting loose the best anti-left diatribe I've seen in months. It's on Riehl's site, but I'm reproducing it in full here to save you some time.

You Liberals are terrified - TERRIFIED OF PALIN. You know full well she didn't abandon her governor seat, she was hit by so many frivolous lawsuits from the Left that she couldn't function as governor and do the will of the people. So cut the crap with your lies!
You want to talk about abandoning? OK, let's have at it - Obama abandoned YOU. And your silence SCREAMS hypocrisy!

GE pays no taxes. Silence from the Left.Obama takes us to war #3. Silence from the Left.
Sarah Palin called a t***. Then a c***. Silence from the feminist Left. Economy in shambles. Silence from the Left.
Foreign policy a disaster. Silence from the Left. Pump prices have doubled under Obama. Silence from the Left.
Food/clothing prices skyrocket. Silence from the Left. Over 30 Czars. Silence from the Left.
Obama loses Democratic party over 700 seats. Silence from the Left. National debt has risen to 1.4% of a Quadrillion dollars. Silence from the Left.
NPR busted in full bias. Silence from the Left. GTMO still open. Silence from the Left.
2 wars still on, one with record death toll. Silence from the Left. All Democrat Congressional and Senate representatives are millionaires, multimillionaires, or billionaires. Silence from the Left.
Obama ignores nuclear disaster now reaching our shores. Silence from the Left. Obama delivers oil rig contract to Soros-owned Petrobas so they can drill for oil in gulf and sell it to us. Silence from the Left.
Hundreds of waivers delivered to Big Corporations and unions for Obamacare exemptions. Silence from the Left.

Palin IS NOT running the country, neither is Bush or Reagan or Beck or Nixon or Limbaugh or the Koch brothers. OBAMA is. And he's doing a damned terrible job of it as his recent 41% approval rating is showing. So go back to HuffPo and tell them you need better talking points. And a better candidate next time. This one and his Liberal policies are Epic Fail. 

I have nothing more to add.

WaPo Ombudsman Fiasco, Phase II

Yesterday, I wrote about the Washington Post Ombudsman's lame defense of the Post's "reporters" who casually slimed Tea Partiers for an alleged racial incident purportedly occurring just after the disastrous Congressional vote that burdened us all with Obamacare PelosiCare. I actually read the original defense in the Post's dead tree version, having subscribed to this rag for roughly 40 years on a "need to know" basis. (It actually used to be a pretty decent paper way back when.)

When I wrote my entry, however, I was unaware that Power Line was covering the same thing in a different way. In today's installment, they provide an enlightening chain of correspondence between the Post's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, and a Tea Party member who was actually at the event in question. Rather than sum it up, I'll give you the link here. I urge you to read it and note several things:

• Note how many times Greg Farrell (the Tea Partier) asks specific questions that are completely ignored by Alexander
• Note the verbal twisting and sidestepping meant not only to obscure the shape-shifting nature of the original "story" but to confuse the issue
• Observe how, in one response, Alexander takes issue with Farrell defining him as a member of the Post's staff, i.e., a W-2 employee. Alexander takes great pains to point out that he is NOT an employee, but this is a red herring. The point of having an ombudsman who's not an employee of a given newspaper is allegedly to ensure his or her objectivity. In point of fact, Alexander has a contractual arrangement with the Post to perform this service. Riddle me this, Andrew: if I were fortunate enough to have your contract, how many times would the Post allow me to blast its reporters for malfeasance and lack of professionalism before you'd find a way to terminate my contract? 

Needless to say, Posties get whacked just often enough by the current ombudsman that it creates a sense of verisimilitude for the average reader. But this is only skin-deep. The Post, perhaps less egregiously than the openly treasonous New York Times, still toes the Socialist Democrat party line which the paper myopically (or not) regards as a "moderate" point of view. Whomever their current ombudsperson happens to be, the paper will not countenance relentless criticism of their countless sins of omission and commission. You can bank on it. And you'll understand this better if you take the time to go through the tap dance I've cited above.

Look, Andrew, I myself have written the kind of Washingtonspeak you write, for two administrations (Democrat and Republican) no less. I know how this is played. And besides, I was being paid to be partisan. You and the Post's reporters are allegedly being paid to provide the unvarnished, objective truth, right? So why don't you investigate the left as vigorously as you attempt to discredit the right?

And when are guys like you going to do some soul-searching with regard to the role all of you have played in the destruction of a once honorable profession? This, rather than the loss of ad revenue to Google, is the reason why print journalism today is in such a sorry state. None of us expects an answer to this, of course. But maybe you should think about it.

Something Is Happening And You Don't Know What It Is

Long ago, if you wanted to put on a good taxpayer revolt, you marched in the streets, waved flaming torches, and maybe dumped a load of British tea into the harbor…Today, you go on the "John and Ken Show."…John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou have roused the masses, and their show on KFI-AM (640) talk radio has become Southern California's rant room for those who are fed up with government spending, government bailouts and government tax hikes…There’s a Tax Revolt in the Air, John Weeks, Whittier Daily News, 3/21/2009

Between this kind of radio talk show and the Tea Party movement, something is going on out there. Because of the concentration of attention by the major media on tax relief from the federal government, that 95%-of-the-workers’ relief plan that Obama promised (and that Congress is turning away from, perhaps seeing it for what it is, wealth transfer from taxpayers to non-taxpayers), the real tax horrors are ignored. What are they?

In a northern town, at the very tip of Westchester, property taxes on a fairly modest house are pushing toward $15,000 a year. On top of a mortgage payment, however much deductible, just maintaining that sample house requires over $50,000 a year. Westchester County is not the best example, as it has a high average income, pushing $120,000. But, one should note that, after taxes, that’s not much money. $50,000 represents more than half of the after-tax remainder, and doesn’t include utilities and maintenance of the house, not to mention food, costs of commuting, clothing, that fund to get the kids through college, insurance for car, house, life, etc., etc., etc.. Property taxes in New York, New Jersey, California, and many, many other states are the proverbial straw. And, it’s getting to be a pretty damn big straw. Why?

To be fair, police, fire, sanitation, sewage, highways and schools are not free. The days of heroic volunteer firemen are pretty much gone. Somebody’s gotta pay those people. But there are also huge federal and state mandates for services no town ever thought of having to pay for (nor did they have representation in Congress for their side of an argument that mandated them to raise taxes), not to mention arrays of compliance officers to assure that towns were meeting regulations and mandates from the state and federal government. With a marked unwillingness at higher levels to raise taxes (not to mention the risk of political risk), the job of paying for a Congressional or Presidential cause has increasingly been forced onto localities. In New York, it’s led to taxpayer flight. That’s when someone living on the border of Vermont, for instance, notes that it’s cheaper to live there and work in New York State than to live and work in New York. And it’s also when companies, plagued with taxes from localities and the state, which are as high in New York as in any other state, move across borders, sometimes national borders, so that they can afford to do business, make some money, and pay their taxes.

You can only do so much of that. The option to leave is not available to everyone. And, when the pressure is at its high, whether in the days of Howard Jarvis or now, citizens, noticing that their wallets are about empty, start asking questions and raising hell. It’s about time. Governments that assume their citizens are always rich enough to pay more taxes usually find themselves at the wrong end of change when the people start to speak.

Luther

AIG, and the People's Response

Singer Lloyd Marcus told the crowd assembled in Lake Eola Park on Saturday that he was going to give them his take on the first days of the Obama administration. Then he shrieked. That pretty much summed up the mood in the park Saturday afternoon, when more than 4,000 people attended the Orlando Tea Party, a conservative rally aimed at expressing discontent with Washington. "This is maybe the greatest single gathering of God-fearing patriots in the history of Orlando, Florida," local conservative radio host Bud Hedinger, who emceed the event, told the crowd. The attendees, many of whom said they'd heard about the rally on Hedinger's radio show, brandished flags and homemade signs bearing slogans such as "Repeal the pork or our bacon is cooked" and "Obama lied, liberty died."…Orlando Tea Party Draws More than 4000, Helen Eckinger, 3/23/2009

Meanwhile, back in the middle class that Vice President Biden said the Democrats were going to save, there are some cranky individuals out there, you know, those deemed worthless by the Obama Administration, those who go to work, pay their taxes, pay their mortgages, manage their household budgets, and try to plan for a retirement that looks like it might be very far off. These tea parties are marvelous events; and they’ve been happening nationwide. The people can differentiate between democratic leaders and a new George the Third.

Sadly, their events remind this writer a great deal of the farmers’ rallies in the Carter Administration in the 1970s, when family farmers drove their tractors to Washington to express their shock and outrage at the bias in federal farm policy toward subsidizing corporate farms, highly conglomerated competitors who could cut prices until they shut down any survivors, even as they salted out the land they managed. Fact is, those policies did just what those protesters claimed. The family farm, by and large, is now a hobbyist’s vocation. Big Agriculture, rather like big agriculture under Lenin and Stalin in the old USSR, simply wiped out the competition.

But this writer is going to continue to beat his drum, hoping that Joe Biden’s targets of salvation keep raising holy hell to stop the manic hypocrisy and lying in Washington, DC. Because, the only real bankruptcy that will be a tragedy in the next few years will be when people who really are responsible are left in the impoverished shadows of bailed out dinosaurs like AIG and Citibank.

If you wanted to have an example of how the government’s operation of the economy works, you couldn’t ask for a better one than the government’s handling of AIG. It works to the advantage of those who are most like the government: bloated; overbearing; tyrannical; greedy; grasping; arbitrary – a highly organized class of thieves.

Luther