You likely didn't notice, but third-tier blogger Dan Riehl and his erstwhile patron and chunin-rank pundit Mark Levin engaged in a minor series of hissy-fits over vaguely, sort of, nominally not-complimentary things about Michelle Malkin and Sarah Palin, respectively, that appeared at RedState.

Now, I should note that I have no particular beef with Mark Levin -- among second-rate bloviators and pundits, he's easily in the top fifth or so -- and I think Dan Riehl, though utterly inconsequential, is likely charming whenever he's let out of obedience school, so I hope it's clear that I'm not trying really hard to make this personal. Rather, I'm making a larger point about how the dimmer the bulb, the more any perceived slight on one's personal political avatar becomes an assault on one's household gods; how this engages the brighter bulbs in the same battles over time; and how that tendency threatens to turn a primary season that should be wholly about finding the best candidate to defeat Captain Kitten and his merry band of Neiman Marxists into yet another round of bloodsport internecine warfare.

Let's put Michelle Malkin to the side before we start (a sentiment I would that the conservative movement would consider seriously in a larger sense). Malkin, who is undeniably ridiculously bright, telegenic, and media-savvy, is basically only useful for making sure that a small, easily irritated, not-overly-clever segment of the voting population shows up at the polls and vaguely intuits that the Republicans will be less bad than the Democrats when it comes to letting the filthy brown people come to the United States. Instead, let's talk about Presidential candidates, declared and never-to-be.

I am a fairly big Sarah Palin fan; I have believed for almost three years that she is too smart and too sane to run for the Presidency, as doing so would endanger her family, her ability to make money, and her sanity. To run for the Presidency in the modern era means alienating yourself from your family, pretending you think the good people of New Hampshire and Iowa have even minor modica of common sense (for which you must rigorously ignore their voting patterns over the last two decades), eating bad food, wearing ridiculous clothing, and sleeping in the hotels and motels everyone else must to show that you can pretend you've slept in a hotel with less than three stars in living memory. All of that, of course, precedes the relentless harassment of your spouse and children, parents, colleagues, college roommates, and, unless you're Barack Obama, your doctor and/or your college registrar. Mrs. Palin has been through too much of that; so far, she appears to be vindicating my faith in her. My good money says she doesn't run.

But regardless of whether she does or not, the critical, the most important, the single-most-useful thing to remember about her is that she is a politician. Oh, Lord, she is crafty, and as Leon noted, you don't boatrace the two biggest names in Alaska politics in one fell swoop without being at least not-dumb. She has an eye and an ear for the media the likes of which we rarely see. If that useless pile of flesh John McCain hadn't wasted her talent, she would surely be a fresh, new face on the campaign trail this year or in 2016. But she is a politician, she is a Republican politician, and she is neither a goddess nor an avatar nor a living embodiment of anything. She's a mother of five who clawed her way up the chain, which means she also has good political instincts to boot; but she will use, chew up, and spit out whatever and whoever is needed to accomplish her goal.

That is what politicians do.

To be a successful Republican politician means knowing when to work with and when to buck the Party establishment, because if you don't, you're not a Republican, you're an independent or a member of a fringe group like the Constitution Party, the Libertarians, or fans of Third Eye Blind. How you balance punching the party in the eye and moving it along is the measure of your effectiveness as a politician. John McCain, in twenty years of trying, hasn't figured this one out yet, and not unrelatedly, he was doomed never to be President McCain. George W. Bush ran this gauntlet in 2000, and not unrelatedly, he became President Bush.

But there is nothing insulting -- or at least so insulting that a B-level pundit would feel the need to assert how seriously conservative he really is where everyone can laugh at him -- in saying that Sarah Palin sometimes runs with the Republican establishment. Of course she does. Her schtick is dependent on having sway inside and outside the party, and God bless her for pulling it off. I hated her endorsement of Fiorina (whose campaign was a waste from its announcement through its agonizing and entirely predictable failure) and I think her non-endorsement endorsement of Orrin Hatch is beyond ridiculous. But she needs to balance the ridiculous establishment endorsements against the rebel challenges or she will lose all of her influence in the party's establishment; and without that, she's a significantly hotter Rush Limbaugh with a lesser radio talent and a greater new media talent.

But more importantly, who cares? Even assuming she is running for President -- and she is not -- she hardly needs would-be-surrogates to defend her, to feign or feel indignation on her behalf. Part of why I'm a big fan of hers is that she clearly has steel in her spine, and the brains and mouth to back it up.

This is as true of the nominally real candidates in the race. Jon Huntsman's vanity campaign is well-enough funded -- if colossally stupid enough -- to hire people to insult his Party's base for him. (Dear Huntsman consultants: Before you get to the general electorate, you must convince Republicans to let you. Send my fee to Eagle, they'll forward it to me.) Mitt Romney's incredible astroturfing skills from 2007-2008 are doubtless even greater this time around, and if I cared enough, I'd probably be impressed. Rick Perry has a dangerously good -- if at times self-destructively petty -- campaign team, all of whom draw salaries for a reason. Michelle Bachmann has a long history of giving as good as she gets, which is just as well given the sometimes too-short relay time between her brain and her mouth.

Ron Paul and his delusional followers have long experience with onanism, so they don't particularly care what you think.

But one of these people will clear the primaries. (Obviously, not Ron Paul.) Because they are politicians and see voters as tools to achieve goals, they don't care what you or I think of them so long as we vote for them. Let me repeat that: THEY DON'T CARE. They see us as means to ends, and if the means happen to gripe while they get used, well, that's pretty amusing, but as long as the end is accomplished, the griping is irrelevant.

This fundamental inability to understand the politician's relationship to his constituents underlies everything from the intra-party rancor you inevitably see in primaries to Captain Kitten's election in 2008. I watched the dynamic play out in 2008, and it goes like this:

Step One: Beloved candidate is attacked/not properly appreciated/made out to be less than other, less-awesome candidate.

Step Two: Stupid people who believe Step One to be literally true rise to nominally beleaguered candidate's defense. Not-dim people sit back, with their hopes and dreams invested in the politician, but brains still engaged, and try to be reasonable.

Step Three: All-out war begins between the politicians' proxy-moron armies.

Step Four: Slowly more enraged by the attacks playing out between the cretins, the non-cretins jump into the fray.

Step Five: Someone wins the primary. A small portion of his opponents' supporters refuse to help because they are either too angry or too convinced of the awfulness of the winner because of the slapfights in Steps Three and Four. A larger portion won't go to the ground to help because of the same reasons, even though they'll vote for him.

Step Six: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passes both Houses through the use of parliamentary tricks unbecoming an adult Republic.

Our first, primary, and overriding goals should be the absolute destruction of the Obama Presidency by all legal and more-or-less ethical means, and retaking the Senate. Anything constructively aiding that goal -- including good-faith debate of each candidate's strengths and weaknesses -- is good. Anything else is like being a Ron Paul follower: Yelling for the way your pants feel afterward.

We didn't remotely grasp that lesson in 2008. We have two Supreme Court justices, one unconstitutional government behemoth of a health care law, and a gigantic regulatory mess to show for it. If we continue acting like Riehl and Levin are now, it will get worse from here.

When I was at RedState, there were only three bloggers who I felt should never have been given posting privileges of any sort, for different reasons. Each was a Josh Trevino addition -- but let me be absolutely clear about something here: So was I. (Er, that doesn't make anything better.) Let me try it this way: Josh scores so many hits, you'd expect a few misses along with them. Moreover, given that his intent in his part of the creation of the site was to create a broad coalition of center-right writers, you have to give him credit for actually following through, even though the results were uneven.

One, Sebastian Holsclaw, left after the changeover from the Scoop platform to the Drupal model RedState is getting ready to abandon. Sebastian's problem, as far as I was concerned, was that he was so out of touch with the community as a whole that his posts were like dropping a snare drum solo into a performance of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Bright fella, nice guy (from what I could see), decent-but-not-great writer, but just really out of step with the other writers and commenters.

The second, Charles Bird, still writes there. Frankly, I'm leery of sharing too many of my thoughts about him given his reaction to my departure, but that reaction is illustrative of two parts of the problem: Charles is and was a plodding, dim, extraordinarily conventional thinker, and his writing reflects it; but aside from comforting me that I wasn't the least capable talent on the front page of RedState, there's not much wrong with that. Bird's issues are two-fold, but inextricably intertwined: (1) Charles's blogging belongs first and foremost to that left-wing moron factory, Obsidian Wings, and it shows not only in his I-don't-expect-intelligent-reply style (and that he can't be bothered to change the hyperlinks in his work to redirect to his work on RedState), but also in the essential thrust of the work, which tends to be explicative to, for, and from the perspective of center-lefters. (2) Charles is more naturally comfortable with the Left, partially out of reflexive ideological sympathy, and partially out of the absence of two functioning prefrontal lobes; this in turn is why Charles has spent more than his share of time on his home site (the moron factory) taking shots at RedState. (I wasn't the one to whom he gave his cherry, if you catch my drift.) That post-semicolon part was the biggest reason I wanted him gone; sadly, as with my efforts to ban the (other) below-I.Q. 100 commenters at RedState, I was as much a miserable failure as Charles's teachers from kindergarten on.

(Yes, that's "not sharing too many of my thoughts.")

But I'm not here to address Sebastian or Bird. Instead, this is about John Cole.

A good friend of mine forwarded this a while back with the notation, "Pot, Meet Kettle." There's no point in excerpting it or commenting on it -- by now, anyone familiar with how John has degenerated will be able to sing along with it by knowing that he's upset with The Dread Rises for obsessiveness -- except to say that it's what prompted me to write this.

Flash back a loooong way. H.D. Miller -- remember him, anyone? Traveling Shoes? (H.D. has taken that blog private.) -- turned me on to him back in 2002 or 2003. Professor Miller would doubtless qualify as a wingnut in Cole's current lexicography, but back then, during an email exchange, he told me I should check out Cole's work.

I got a kick out of it. It was a fun read, he clearly didn't like my political priorities, but he clearly didn't like a lot of others', and he used to turn the odd good phrase. I was tickled when I found out I'd get to write with him at RedState, about two years later.

Now, this may surprise those of you whose experience with Cole is from mid-2006 on, but at one time, John was a fairly critical thinker. He pretty much always considered me a theocrat in waiting -- which isn't fair, I'm a monarchist if I'm anything -- but he was pretty up-front that (1) if I didn't bother him about it, he wouldn't bother me about it, and (2) that notwithstanding, common ground could make common fronts possible.

So: I recognize that abortion is murder, as is dehydrating one's wife to death; he thinks people should be free to commit these kinds of murder. Fair enough. At one time -- back before he voted for, and endorsed, Alan Mollohan and Bob Byrd -- we could agree that the growth of the Federal government is, ceteris paribus, a bad thing, and that efforts should be made to stop this. Of course, at one time, he wasn't actively opposed to winning in Iraq, either.

The critical issue, though, wasn't whether he and I agreed, so much as that you could tell he'd thought things through before he wrote, at least a large percentage of the time. Here in blog-land, that's a fairly rare event.

(Dark, funny secret: One of my posts that most set off the orangutans who inhabit the American Left was actually a composite work of the then-RedState crew, including, probably most heavily but for yours truly, John as the foremost contributor. Hint: Think late-summer 2005, and "yard ape.")

What's particularly hard about all this is that John is now just one more lefty. I can read the few bright lefties out there and think, Hm, maybe I don't agree, but that is a good insight, or even, Ya know, I think I agree with that. It says something that there is now nothing interesting about Cole except his on-again, off-again fascination with RedState. Basically, he's turned his site into a group-blog, slightly-wider-ranging version of B. Fred State.

John left around the same time Sebastian did -- sadly, Charles chose to stay after the switchover, and curiously, continued to post to the front through all of the 2006 and 2007, even though he now claims his work was purely in the diaries -- which more or less dovetailed with when I was agitating for him to leave. (There was no connection between my attempts and his voluntary parting.) The common theme for the three was that all spent a fair amount of their time shooting at RedState from their home blogs, only to turn up at RedState and pretend nothing had happened. At the founding of RedState, the operating principle was that only what's done on the site matters as to fronting privileges; however, I took that to mean that political positions taken elsewhere were not taken into account. Maybe it had changed two years later, and maybe it hadn't; maybe I was right, and maybe I was wrong. Regardless, it says something about a man if he'll tell one public audience something awful about you, then pretend in front of another public audience that there's nothing amiss.

Why did John go nuts? I dunno. I sometimes think it's ObiWi disease; sometimes, I think John's meds have failed; yet other times, I suspect he's simply grown senile.

For whatever reason, there's really no intellectual or substantive difference between anything he writes and the sort of pedestrian work you can find any time Markos Moulitsas writes for his page, or what the intellectual pin-cushions at Obsidian Wings spew at theirs. He's become an indistinguishable howl in the crowd, and I don't think his broken principles, such as they were, sting him any more.

Damned shame, really.

This was originally posted at RedState as Just a drop of water in an endless sea. I was going to leave it there, and only there, but given the warm reception that Nazi-coddler's acolytes have given it, I really don't have much choice but to put it up here, too.

Oh, and Lonewacko: Lying doesn't help your case, even when it's more sophistry than an outright lie.

I thought about calling this And thanks for all the fish, but that's been done. I confess to being tempted with The Wrath of the Valheru, but only because it's the coolest phrase in English ever. I also thought about The Bad Wolf, but that would be lost on the non-geeky.

So, I'm leaving.

Traditionally, diaries such as these tend to focus on how awful everyone's been to the diarist; how the blogosphere is a great, teeming mass of unfairness that stalks the land like a great, teeming, unfair, massive thing; and they tend to be interesting only from an anthropological perspective. We've been blessed with relatively few of even the truly interesting type -- the great kowalski's numerous successes in defying convention notwithstanding -- so I'm hoping this one will at least do all the budding archaeology majors a service.

One last time, please, read on.

I've been with RedState since just before it went live, and it's been one helluva ride. In honor of that ride, there are some things I need to get out there.

First and foremost, whenever someone leaves, there's the inevitable Why? followed by the even more inevitable I know the real reason. This isn't helped when the person leaving is coy about the rationale, as some have been, so let me put the record straight, right hand raised, left hand on the keyboard, gripping hand on the Bible.

I'm so tired. That's pretty much it. I don't mean this to be a Waah, waah, woe is me moment -- if what follows doesn't make clear how enjoyable all this has been, nothing will -- but it really does take a lot of effort to make this nominal hobby work, and balancing that against a job that eats, and has always eaten, a lot of my time, and an ever-growing brood, is a balancing act without easy parallel. Moreover, it has been driven home to me by everyone's decision to focus on the 2008 GOP Presidential nomination, forsaking Congress and local government, that my voice carries a lot less weight than it once did -- a good thing, I stress, because that means the community has several hundred minds of its own, but a tiring thing, nevertheless.

I have lost a few friendships as a result of my work here, including one that I treasured, of someone I admire and respect (and rather like) to this day. I'm by nature a fairly darkly cynical fellow, and the occasional cheerleading that is needed for good Party efforts has become harder of late.

I am, until the end of this diary, a Director of this site, and I am honored to be one; but my chair is a rotating one, and it will soon be filled by another. My production on the site has become limited to behind-the-scenes work, some nasty troll-killing, and the odd bit of meta-site work to keep the comments and diaries from getting out of control. In other words, my real value to the site has plunged to very close to
nil.

And, I must confess, I no longer take the great joy in troll-killing that I once did. It's a short, grim smile, where before I'd have a grin that would last whole minutes.

The intra-site bloodfest that has been the 2008 primaries has been ... hard. No matter what someone says about your preferred candidate -- or their own voting tendencies -- it would have been nice if most folks had remembered that we're gonna wake up next to each other the morning after the primaries, and that we can't do that thing where we awkwardly pause before mumbling something, grab the keys, and never making eye contact, hurry out the door. Basically, it's been like having a year of Schiavo and Miers all bundled up into one big lovefest that never ends: Obsessive ranting and spinning and condemnation among folks who normally share politics, conversation, and hobbies is enough to drive anyone who cares about this site bonkers.

I have the option to remain a Contributor and moderator; but I don't do halfsies.

Because the seat is rotating, this is probably the best possible time to hang up my holster, smile, softly sing A Wanderin' Star, and leave.

So, that's why. Nothing romantic, nothing special, just being ready for a break at the right time.

That leads to thanks where due.

First, I owe Ben, Mike, and Josh a sincere thanks for bringing me on board as the least talented, affirmative-action Cajun Editor three and a half years ago; and an even deeper thanks for opening the toolkit to me, while I was making fun of Mike's shirt, no less.

Second, I owe Ben, Erick, Clayton, and Mike, a thanks for this turn at being a Director. It was worth the wait, guys.

Third, I owe my fellow Contributors a hearty round of thanks for putting up with, befriending, and offering encouragement and jibes to me when I needed both. I'm privileged to have been part of such a wonderful group, and don't ever think I don't know it.

Fourth, I owe every diarist and commenter whom I haven't banned (permanently) a sincere round of thanks for the good arguments, the repartee, and Tbone's Cajun jokes. Actually, that last leads to an important point: A lot of the smiles, laughs, and happy cackles of determination I've experienced these last three years are due in no small part to all of the wonderful members of the community that have made their online home here. Naming Tbone doesn't take away from the hundreds of others whose words I've treasured; I could name them all day, and still not finish.

Fifth, I want to take a moment to thank Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Duncan Black, Oliver Willis, the whole crew at Obsidian Wings, and the writers of any other far-left wing moron factory I've inadvertantly omitted, for sending us the waves of cretins who've, between them, managed to make target practice a sport for the whole family again. A special thanks for MKS, acupuncture-boy.

Sixth, Rachel: Thank you for sending me one email that kept me going when I thought I shouldn't. And congratulations again.

Now, a few remaining administrative notes.

First: I have withheld any statement of support for any GOP Presidential candidate because it seemed like bad idea, as a Director of the site, to make such an endorsement, and -- God, how I've waited to say this -- because the whole damned lot can go to Hell. What an incompetent mass of horse rear-flesh bound up in what, on paper, is one of the most talented groups the GOP has ever had. I could go on, but the full thing is in my concurrently posted piece, And the horses you all rode in on, one at a time, then rotate.

Second, Lonewacko Blog, if you're reading this -- and based on your obsessively repeated tirade across half the blogosphere and Wikipedia, you are: I banned you, you dirty little racist. I banned you for being a racist, and for showing us that you are a racist. I did not ban you for criticizing George W. Bush, in no small part because where you disagreed with him, I have publicly disagreed with him, you diseased piece of rhinoceros pizzle; I banned you because you decided to share your problems with brown people on this site.

Speaking of whining, puling little men without chests: Dear Adam Bonin: You pathetic excuse for a mockup of a pigtailed little girl. You were banned because you were an obnoxious ass who liked to drop off-topic bank shots into comments whenever you didn't like the way a thread was going; because you lacked more than infrequent courtesy in how you treated a place that doesn't resemble the asylum you call your community home; and because whenever you felt threatened, you went running for Mommy and Daddy as loudly as you could. Your weaselly attempt to frame (I used a word with which you're familiar to bring this back into the realm of the comprehensible for you) your banning to any and all who would listen is replete with a priori conceptual, logical, and, best of all, factual errors on a nearly unparalleled scale. The next time you want to whine about getting a richly deserved punishment, save yourself the embarrassment of making up new facts you like, and just cry into the hindquarters of a baboon at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Speaking of little girls: To Matt Stoller: One day, you're going to learn that there are consequences to pathetically seeking friendship from people offline, then knifing them in the kidneys online, not least of which is that when those pictures of you and the obese, naked clowns come to light, there's no one there to defend you. I will come out of retirement the day that happens, Stinky, to pee on the burial site of your reputation.

Third: Oh, how I've longed to say this -- to the astroturfing advance scouts of certain political campaigns, many of whom alternate between singlehandedly driving the collective IQ of the site from above 100 to just above 1, and to suddenly turning out pieces that magically change writing styles and abilities: I hope your conscience lets you sleep well at night, because were I the little angel on your shoulder, I'd be trying out an Ogre Battle style halo shot on your skull nightly.

Fourth, because no one else will say this: Mitt Romney belongs to a cult. Not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; that's no cult. His freaking political campaign is a cult, and I could have been one of his supporters but for the cult he founded. A pox on everyone formally associated with the campaign, and indeed, everyone ever formally associated with that cult.

Fifth: Guys, when commenting, please hit preview. Please.

Sixth: To all the banned Ron Paul supporters who've filled my inbox lately: Go worship your Nazi-coddler in the privacy of your own home, and stop wasting my Party's time with it. Oh, and **** Ron Paul.

Final, random notes:

These will be the last words I ever write at RedState. I can say that with 99% certainty, because I'm a horrible sucker for nostalgia. I sometimes, on long road trips, pass the old Publix where my wife and I shopped for the first couple of years after we married, and I tear up and start choking just driving into that parking lot. Dropping three-point-five years of commitment into a website means that if I don't want to bawl like an Adam Bonin, I need to stay away.

I've transferred my best content to my old site, now three and change years quiescent. I may write there again; I may not. I'd say comments are welcome -- and they are -- but I can't get any commenting service, neither Blogspot's, nor a third-party's service, to function there, and I'm too cheap to spring for private hosting.

The email address on the contact form is going to go inactive right after I hit "Submit" on this diary, so don't use that if you want to get in touch. My old blog has my current email address on the left bar.

I have five regrets, in total, one of which, no one knows but yours truly. One is known to three people, and can be guessed by about four more. One is known to every Contributor, each of whom is sworn to secrecy. Aside from those, I regret not being able to see RedState 3.0 -- you guys have no idea the work that's going into that. It's gonna rock. The fifth, and most poignant regret, is that I never had the chance to properly beg Ramesh Ponnuru to write something for the site. National Review may have slipped a peg on the old respectability scale, but not because of any work of Ramesh's. The man is one of my heroes, and this regret stings.

There's so much more, but I don't want to make this diary any longer than it already is. Thanks again, folks: It really has been an adventure. So:

I don't know half of you as well as I should like, and like less than half of you as well as you deserve.

Always all the best, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year,

Thomas H. Crown

This was originally posted at RedState -- my penultimate work there -- under the title And the horses you all rode in on, one at a time, then rotate. Interestingly, it produced one of the more insightful ... er, make that the insightful comment I've read at Daily Kos here.

You all have no idea how long I've wanted to write this. For the reasons set forth in my next diary, I can, and am; but I've been saving this up for a while. Pardon the spleen.

Dear Senators Thompson and McCain; Governors Romney and Huckabee; and Mayor Giuliani: You all suck.

Read on to see why. Or don't; I figure only two of you are smart enough to care why a conservative, Mass-going Catholic would personally drive the buggy to take you all to Hell.

Before I go any further, to any outraged supporters of any of these candidates: Toss it. So many of you have spent so much time shilling for your preferred choices, you've lost track of first principles. I have no time for far too many of you, and those of you with the brainpower to actually merit notice have picked the wrong company in which to travel.

Let's start with my favorite: Mayor Rudolph "Voting for Me is Material Cooperation with Evil" Giuliani. I owe you a sincere and hearty congratulations: You have taken what should have been a commanding lead in the primaries and run it into the ground through a combination of provincialism (you're a New Yorker, I guess I shouldn't expect any better), leftism on social principles, and the sort of rare political sophistication that comes from thinking that because you've faced down what New York has to offer, you are entitled to support. But what you've really done -- where you've truly shined -- is offered Republican voters a lesson in why not to vote for a liberal Catholic, a lesson they heretofore always thought could be summarized as "because he's a Democrat." Bravo, cretin.

The problem, at base, is two-fold: Part One: Your policy positions and natural inclinations would have left you a Democrat anywhere but New York City or San Francisco. Being honest with yourself is the first step on the road to recovery: Admit it. Deal with it. Move on. You are not a fiscal conservative (hint: fiscal conservatives do not adore the progressive tax structure). You are not a social conservative (oh, you are not a social conservative). You are not a small-government conservative (never, ever that). What you are is some guy who decided he didn't like crime and disorder. Bad news, buckaroo: This isn't the 1970s. 'Round these parts, even Democrats figured out -- heck, even the Clintons figured out -- that criminals are bad people years before anyone called you anything but "challenged by a combover."

You're a Democrat running for the Republican nomination. Admit it -- yell it to the Heavens -- and move on.

The second part is related. You are a liberal Catholic. I know, I know, my identification of this disqualifies everything I say hereafter; that's why you're not one of the two candidates smart enough to understand that there's a problem.

The problem with liberal Catholics is a flip of the problem with conservative Catholics who seek ecclesiastical support for their every preferred policy position: Instead of trying to stick a square peg in a round hole, as the latter do, the former insist that the peg is really round, and that it's their right to change the entire structure of everything in Creation to fit their preferred outcomes. This is a problematic attitude to hold in a Church that teaches that things simply are sometimes, and it's a horrible attitude to carry into trying to be the national standard bearer for an American political party.

Now, Republicans know that to run a campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in the post-Reagan era, one must do at least minimal obeisance to the three pillars of modern Republicanism: Strong national defense, fiscal conservatism, and social conservatism. We also know that we have to speak in optimistic, glowing terms about the American Republic, because it really is the best nation on God's green Earth, and people would like to be reminded every so often; and following from that, our national candidate must speak of national beliefs and goals.

As a liberal Catholic Democrat with a bad tendency to provincialism, you have spent your entire campaign going on about the "two legs" of the Republican platform, omitting social conservatism, and your entire campaign has been spent talking about New York. You have tried to insist that the peg is really round, refusing to even speak of its angles, and you have run with the sort of provincialism that kills a political campaign. I know New Yorkers are convinced that they are uniquely qualified to be God because of where they live; and I know that you are convinced as a theological matter that everything should bend before you; but grow the Hell up.

We are a coalition defined by conservatism of every manner and method. We expect our only national candidate to at least sorta pretend or at least kinda project a vague belief in all the kinds of conservatism, of which, bad news, Mayor, social conservatism is a vital part. What we require is so damned minimal it's not funny: We don't ask that you support executing abortionists, that you tattoo gay men with bar codes, that Federal marshals enforce Bible study time in public schools: We ask that you support the right of the people to choose socially conservative practices for themselves, or not. But because you're a Democrat (and a liberal Catholic), you just can't swallow that, can ya?

I personally know very smart people who have advised your campaign on how to avoid all of the problems your social policy preferences would yield, and because the freaking peg is round, their advice wasn't given the time of day. That worked out well, huh?

Relatedly, there's the whole "busted family" thing. One of the critical insights Republicans have offered is that a private life is suggestive of how a public life will work. It's something a lot of people instinctively understand. Now, your personal life is, let's put this delicately, FUBAR; but your decision not to deal with it early in the campaign is, as near as I can discern, not a function of dengue-fever level stupidity, but rather an insistence that the world reorder itself to you. That, too, has worked out pretty well.

The net result is that you have paved the way for Mitt Romney (below) to slide to the nomination, and to drag us all to the bottom of the ocean against Queen Thickankles. Oh, and if you somehow get the nomination, you'll break the Party in twain. Wonderful. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.

Now, for Governor Willard "Mitt" "Astroturf" Romney: God, what a waste you are. You know, I actually could have supported you, and have toyed with it. You seem like a nice, competent fellow. Were you like this the whole time, I'd have been with you from day one. Somewhere in there is a real human being, with real fire in his belly, and I would be proud to call that man "Mr. President."

Unfortunately, that guy's not running. Instead, we have Al Gore's anima infused in a Ken Doll, and gifted with actual business sense. You're clearly smarting from your Dad's self-destruction all those years ago -- an understandable impulse -- and so you've decided to be all things to all Republicans, and to run your political campaign like a modern business enterprise. Bad idea.

Our own Dan McLaughlin has extensively covered the numerous reasons you'd give us heartburn (here, here, here, here, and here), and on those counts, I don't think there's any point in repeating, less eloquently, what he's said. Instead, I'm going to tell you why a lot of grassroots Republicans want nothing to do with you, and it has nothing to do with you being Mormon.

Stephen Green, or perhaps Jonah Goldberg, noted that watching you campaign is like being asked, What do I have to do to put you in this BMW today? I think that's emblematic of the way your campaign has been run, and it's why those of us who pay attention to these things (and those of us who, unlike I, actually have the ability to influence opinion, have turned off on you) want nothing to do with the cult you've founded.

You sent astroturfers out into the blogging world, as bloggers, commenters, and, here, diarists. On its face, this sounds like a good business practice: Build demand and awareness for the product, then unleash the product. In real life, this is stupid. Like the fake websites that some PR companies set up for large corporations, anyone who's actually paying attention sniffs these things out in short order, and then you end up with egg on your face.

Your campaign is run like a cult-of-personality version of Amway. I don't want to steal anyone's thunder here, but let's just say it's possible to criticize your policy positions or record without caring what your religious beliefs are; it is, however, impossible to criticize your policy positions or record without being called a bigot, or having your livelihood threatened. (Oh, and Stephen, if you're reading this: You're part of the problem.) I loathe everyone and everything associated with your campaign, and by extension, this means I have to hope to Almighty God you don't take the nomination, because I know you will not only die in the general, you will do enormous collateral damage in your death-throes.

You lie about your record and your past. Don't do that. That's Al Gore's way of dealing with a disappointed father. I understand that this is an attempt to rebrand the product, but you aren't [bleep]ing Coca-Cola: We don't care about New Coke, we care that you pretend that public funding of abortions is taking a pro-life stance.

And yet, we're probably stuck with you, because of the incredible incompetence of your opponents. On the Wonder Years, an otherwise awful and highly forgettable show, the narrator once noted that his parents faced a conundrum when deciding how to decorate the kitchen. Dad would insist on some tile he liked. Mom would insist on some tile she liked. They'd compromise on some tile no one in our species liked.

You are that tile, Mitt. You are the "Eh," Candidate. Congratulations.

Now, for an old nemesis: St. John the McCain. Man, you just never got it. You were, by rights, the front-runner. You had your shot in 2000, missed, said and did most (but, critically, not all) of the right things, and you lined up for your coronation. But you never really internalized that there is a difference between saying what a reporter thinks is a good thing, and saying what the average Republican voter thinks is a good thing. I would say this is merely a form of error, but repeated over the course of eight years, I'm forced to conclude that it's actually a form of powerful stupidity. This sucks, because I think you're our best chance to beat the Hildebeest.

Think it through: Does the average Republican voter like that you helped form a compromise on judges that left some very good judges out in the cold? Does the average Republican voter like restrictions on his political speech near election time? Does the average Republican voter like that you've all but accused American soldiers of torturing others? Does the average Republican voter like that you side with the Democrats on global warming? Does the average Republican voter like that you've all but called anyone who disagrees with your immigration stance a bigot? If you've answered any of these questions (or, apparently, all of these questions) "Yes," then I'd respectfully submit that you deserve the drubbing you're about to get.

You're going, I'll bet, to win New Hampshire, thereby proving once and for all that New Hampshire Republicans aren't. And after that, you're going to go down in flames, helping The Chief Astroturfer take the rest of us down. You're going to do this because you've so enjoyed playing up the maverick part of "maverick Republican" that you've neglected to show Republican voters that you're actually much more Republican than maverick. Instead, these last seven years, instead of publicly mending bridges burned in 2000, you have Schumered to every camera you could find whenever you wanted to share your latest deviation from the Republican Party. As a way to get free press, it beats everything but public human sacrifice to Moloch. As a way to win the Republican nomination for President of the United States, it's up there with public human sacrifice to Moloch. (And, as you at one point endorsed worship of Moloch for scientific purposes, you already lost that portion of the base that understands the allusion.)

That you're clearly nuts isn't the problem; I don't know that we'd mind a nutter for the Presidency. The problem is that, to paraphrase a wag at the Washington Post Online seven years ago, you keep alienating a key constituency in the Republican Party: Republicans. Put differently: The general election happens second. You have to win the primaries first.

I really think you could have squared the circle and made everyone understand what you brought to the table; but history is sometimes prologue, and for you, it's every damned chapter.

Now, for the second coming of Huey Long: Governor Huckabee. I'd like to congratulate you on getting a core component of the Republican base to forget one of the most vital lessons of modern American politics: Never vote for the governor of Arkansas for anything. Now, as Texan, and son of Louisiana, I have to confess I'm perhaps disproportionately amazed at this feat, as we get to see you and yours on an unfortunately consistent basis. But credit where due: You're offering a lot of my fellow conservatives a cyanide pill, and they're begging for the chance to swallow it.

Your problems are two-fold, and in a sense, it's not fair for me to criticize you: You've only been on the radar for a little while, and haven't had the chance to lie yourself into a pretzel the way Mitt Romney has.

But, let's just get them out there: Your foreign policy instincts smell like Matt Stoller. I don't care what your positions are: You can, if you somehow miraculously secure funding, hire gurus to tell you what to think on each policy position; heck, hire a whole Potemkin Village of eminences grises for foreign policy, much as Giuliani has done for judges. Your instincts -- what you say off the cuff -- suggest to me that you should never be allowed near the big, shiny red button, and that you cannot be trusted not to Carter your way through foreign affairs.

The second problem -- and why I'm frightened you could win with enough funding -- is that I think real populism sells. The Democrats' immoral approach to human life and the social ills of our nation probably only buys them about a third of their general election support. Where they cash in is being massive redistributionists, and, as a son of Louisiana, I can see that healthy sparkle in your eyes. Combine an economically liberal approach to the world with social conservatism, and I think there's a guaran-damn-teed election winner right there.

And I'll go to my grave before I support you. Because even if that blood-marker Roe is overturned on your watch, I'll be fighting that war all over again in two decades. The growth of the welfare state and Federal power was a necessary precondition to Roe's dark birth. When you trust the government to tell you what rights you have and have not, it will give you whatever will keep you most passive. And dead children don't spark revolutions.

I stress that I don't doubt your pro-life bona fides in the slightest. I simply know as surely as I know the gray in my beard that your success would spell the death of the modern Republican Party, and that in turn would lead to the death of the Republic, together with those altars to Moloch I mentioned above.

No dice, preacher man.

And now, most painfully, we come to Fred! Ah, Senator Thompson. I say painfully because I would have loved to support you. Now I'm glad I didn't.

I have only two questions to ask.

(1) What the Hell is wrong with you?

(2) Why are you running some weird amalgam of Phil Gramm's and Bob Dole's 1996 campaigns?

Let's deal with the first. You had a ready, built-in, national base of support begging you to run. They waited. You waited. They waited. You announced and...

...let everyone decide you didn't want the job.

Now, before I go any farther: I think not wanting the job is a good thing. Part of what scares me about Mitt Romney, as with Al Gore, is that they have clearly wanted this job for basically their entire adult lives. That is unhealthy, and frightening. Bless you for not being unbalanced.

But the morons need to think you want the job, in no small part because they are morons. Humans, depressingly, want to be led. They want to think their leader wants to lead them. And unfortunately, far too many of these people watch the evening news, and vote in all sorts of elections where, were we a sane polity, we'd give them toy voting machines to use instead of allowing their votes to count. (All upside: Flashing lights and bells go off when they pull the lever, so they feel good, and their votes don't count, so we feel good.) And you have allowed the evening news to portray you as lazy and uninterested. You slept through the first debates after you entered.

Aphrodite's teeth and painted toenails, what is wrong with you? I mean, all of this bleeds into your campaign and how it's been run. (Second question segue.) Do you maybe remember that neither Gramm nor Dole won the Presidency, against one of the weakest Democrats to have the Presidency in a century? Your ideas and your positions are simply awesome. Your campaign is the weakest, most directionless, poorly organized thing you'll see outside of Ted Kennedy's bathroom every morning. Your run to the Presidency is not a coronation, and the media must be manipulated as any good campaign -- Hillary's, George W. Bush's, Ronald Reagan's, even the first Bill Clinton campaign -- does.

One of our Contributors, Bob Hahn, noted that how one runs a campaign tells you something about how the man at the head will run his Administration. (A better reason to stop Mitt Romney I can't imagine.) If this is true -- and the longer I think on it, I'm sure it is -- this is not only a searing indictment of every man running for the nomination from our side of the "v," it is a giant, glowing warning sign about your potential Presidency. We have had seven years of a Presidency that doesn't do message control. We don't need four more years of that.

In order words, with the last shreds of the respect I once had for you: You don't deserve to be on the stage with the other men, poor, sad, and wanting though they may be, because they did their homework. You have not.

You fail.

I could go on like this for days. I'd like to finish by noting where the fault for all this truly lies: In the voters. We allowed these men to think they had a chance. We encouraged them to be as weak and pathetic as they are, when on paper, we should be sitting in our best position in decades.

On our own heads shall be the results of the 2008 election. God have mercy on our souls, though we don't deserve it.

What you see below -- basically today's entire output -- is my best work (sad as that statement may be) from my time at RedState, beginning in the old days with RedState.org, carrying through to the for-profit RedState.com, and segueing into subdivision-of-Eagle-Publishing RedState.com. I've archived it here for reasons that will become clear in the next ten days, but also because the last time we ported over content on a platform switch, everything that predated the switch was archived and accessible only to moderators. I'm worried that everything will be archived and inaccessible this time, given the enormous resources Eagle is willing to pour into this project.

More to come.

Finally, my two favorite comments. The first was what I consider my best banning comment; I still smile when I think of it. The second taught me an important lesson: Most humans are extraordinarily stupid. For reasons lost on me, the words "the entire American Left" transformed in a lot of folks' minds into "people who voted for John Kerry (and sometimes their children and entire families)", "half the country," and/or "everyone." The first is merely stupid; the second is north of stupid; and the third is proof that a minimum IQ is not a prerequisite to participation on the Internet.

My dear brother Sardo Numsie!
by Thomas

Ah, MKS, I've been looking forward to this for a while.

You've been banned.

Why?

If I may employ an animal metaphor -- and I may -- your ends of conversations around here are like nothing so much as the repeated butting against a stone wall of a brain-damaged, spavined goat, unaware that he's not really doing any damage to the wall, bleeding out of the stumps of his horns, and not even understanding why he attacked the wall in the first place. Your writing suggests that you are the one hyena that decides to move from carrion to fresh prey in one fell swoop by leaping, snarling, between a lion and his fresh kill, only to wonder why your packmates aren't there right behind you.

For further clarity: It's not because of your noxious opinions, nor because you're a Kossack. This lady, though her opinions and her take on certain religious beliefs are so noxious as to actually produce nausea in me -- and I can eat a marinara and boudin pasta dish while watching a colonoscopy on the Discovery Channel -- is not in the targeting scope right now, because she has the good grace to act like a guest in someone else's home.

You, however, have come into our house and peed in the vase our beloved late aunt gave us, and now, simply, we must pour your water down your throat and smash Aunt LiuLiu's vase over your head.

It is because your every word is an insult to the proprietors of this site; to the editorship; to your fellow commenters; to the readership; to writers, readers, and speakers of English everywhere; to Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, and indeed, the line of Anglo-Saxon and English monks who helped guide a rather limited Germanic tongue into the incredibly fluid, fluent tool it is today; and, in all likelihood, to every one who tried to teach you grammar, spelling, logic, and/or manners from the day you were born to the present.

I suppose I owe you a litany of your mendacity, idiocy, and all too frequently a combination of the two:

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

And here.

Really, that's just a sampling from the last couple of days. (By the way, Griswold was decided in 1965, which is not, in fact, the early Sixties.) To get the full, crippling weight of the keen intellectual acumen you bring to bear every time you waste bandwidth here, you've really got to page through every one of your bons mots here.

The upside -- if we may stretch that word past its breaking point to encompass things other than the sheer joy of your exit -- to all of this is that it shouldn't be hard to replicate your, ahem, contributions to date at will. Simply splice together, at random, the words "Conservatives are evil," "Republicans hate America," "you Republicans want to put gays in jail," "I like me," and/or "you all want to ban birth control," along with some utterly turgid legal or logical analysis -- again, we're stretching the language here, so bear with me -- and any commenter on this site can fill what we laughably will call the void caused by your absence.

Kindly let the door hit you on the way out. And please don't waste our time coming back under a different name. Everything else to the side, writing styles are like fingerprints. It takes surprisingly little energy for us to ban you clean and forever if that's what's called for.

'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!
One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.
He hath a spite against me, that I know,
Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?

Farepoorly.

-----------

I repeat: Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.

To those conservatives who couldn't wait to find wrongdoing where none existed: Gee, funny you didn't get all hyped up about this with Bob Bork. Or Sam Alito. I guess maybe your common sense detector -- or decency reserve -- only kicks in when it gets you something you want?

You're all dead to me, as well. Too bad: One lady in particular was a favorite writer of mine. Ah, well.

This dates to September 18, 2005.

To the Republican Party:

I have been a Republican since 1980. I was 4.

Seriously. I’ll never forget the moment that I realized that the guy with the big, warm smile and the ready laugh was a better guy than the dopey looking guy debating him. (Says something that even a four year old could pick up on that.) Obviously, I couldn’t vote that year, but if I could have, the vote would have been easy.

I am a Republican because I am a conservative. I am a Republican because the Republican Party is the best modern vehicle for conservative ideas and values. I am, first and foremost, a Republican because the Republican Party holds, as one of its most elementary tenets, that human life deserves protection from the earliest stages. The Democrats do not believe this. They cannot, and will not, have my vote, so long as they deny the essential humanity and predicate rights of any group of humans. Period.

I am a Republican because ours is the only Party that remembered the value of human freedom when the Loyal Opposition and so much of the world were ready to consign billions to slavery.

I am also a Republican because the Republican Party is the Party of prudence; of understanding that there is a moral value inherent in caution; of understanding the limits of human endeavors; of spending only within our means; of easing the burden of government on Americans; and of knowing the danger of the words, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

A few noble exceptions to the side, there is a general consensus that we’ve forgotten that third set. We’ve forgotten that government as crutch is just as often government as shackle. We’ve forgotten that every time we dole out another million here, another billion there, we shackle men to the government’s yoke as surely as night follows day. We’ve forgotten that there is a moral good attached to spending only as much as we take in, and doing our damnedest to spend even less than that.

But because the Party still, nominally, holds to the first two points, you have me.

But because of the nomination of Harriet Miers, I must now add: Conditionally.

At one time, we took as self-evident that every dollar we give is another hook in some man's flesh -- indeed, it is a hook in many men's flesh, for it comes from taxpayers, and goes to taxpayers. It is a chain made pretty by a gloss of common humanity, but beneath that warm exterior is cold steel, and the chain's third end always, always leads back to the State. And so we have bled for Medicare, and for hurricane relief, and most of all, for the thousands of Congressional projects that tie men’s livelihood and wellbeing to the beneficence of the State. And that bleeding has latched the hook more deeply into the men and women on the second end of the chain, deeper into their flesh, promising blood in the future.

And at some point, the RSC notwithstanding, we stopped caring.

And I can accept that. That's one of the legs down, but I can accept that.

Oh, not happily. But I can accept it because I thought I understood what I was getting in trade: The end of Roe. For that, I would trade a lot -- I have traded a lot. I've made peace with the fact that Republican politicians like to get re-elected as much as Democrats do, which means that the budget goes Up Up Up! I've accepted the fact that no one has the spine to push even Bush's half-hearted Social Security proposals. I've accepted the fact that this White House sees money as power to be applied, not something to value for its own, or for prudence's sake, and the Congresscritters agree. I can accept that, as long as it means that the power is being used to achieve other ends.

I've eaten my own bile, and made peace with the fact that Arlen Specter is part of the caucus, for the same reason.

All pro-lifers have asked, lo these thirty years of blood, is for a chance to persuade. Before the Supreme Court invented a right to terminate unborn children, this issue, as with most contentious issues, was resolved through appeal and compromise and resignation on all sides. And that small, simple thing is what we have been promised all these years by the Republican Party, and it is a vital part of one of the legs of my support for this Party.

And yet, now, I see that leg bending, near the breaking point. And that's a problem, because you see, there are three reasons why I'm a Republican. Two can suffice. One is not enough. And as it happens, you, collectively, are systematically destroying the thickest leg of all.

The President has nominated Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court. We have no indication that she will overturn Roe, no indication that she has a single jurisprudential principle at all. Let us not put too fine a point on it: We have been betrayed. We must now hope and pray -- on scant evidence -- that Miers is a truly stealth Scalia, a woman who will overturn the edifice of Roe, a woman who will rise up with righteous fury at the mere mention of the words "an historic voyage of interpretation," when used in the same sentence with the word "Constitution."

A betrayal this surely is, for you have taken the single thing from us that we have worked all these years to achieve, and used it as a mere bauble to gather our votes, knowing that when the time came to meet your part of our pact, you would decline, promising us that it would be just a little longer. You have made us guess, and hope, and pray, that Miers is at least a shadow of the "judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas" that we were promised. And Miers's nomination is merely the topper on a long line of smaller betrayals.

People of good faith can believe that this is a good nomination, or that the Party has earned enough credibility to take a leap of faith here. I do not. Let me be clear about something: I care precisely nothing about Miers's "qualifications." Everyone fighting over this, put your hands down, go to the back of the classroom, and wait to be called on. I don't care what school she went to, whether she was the Editor in Chief of Law Review (or any other publication), whether she was the Student Bar Association President, or whether she even has experience as judge. We're not discussing high energy particle physics here, folks. We are talking about determining how the laws of the United States are applied to discrete fact situations and, in rare instances, whether a law or legal act comports with the Constitution. Ms. Miers has a pulse, graduated from law school, and has written, on her very own, briefs longer than three pages. She was a partner in a very good firm with a very good litigation practice. I suspect she can IRAC with minimal effort. She'll do fine on the technicalities.

I care, however, that we know nothing about her – or at least, nothing that matters. The single most fundamental question is this: Does she have a coherent, concrete philosophy? If not, she will surely be a return to the bad old days of Sandy O’Connor, and we have no guarantee that she will not be buffeted by the egos around her, some of whom actually have theories of jurisprudence. (Justices Souter, Kennedy, and Stevens are therefore no danger to her, except insofar as they hang out at the nerd table in the cafeteria together.)

I have a friend who was a summer associate at Locke Liddell & Sapp right after the merger. His opinion of her -- concededly after only six weeks infrequently around her -- is that she was (and presumably is) a bright, personable, extremely capable litigator, more or less conservative, fairly Republican, and utterly uninterested in any of the landmarks that are now features of the Kulturkampf of the last forty years. If you listen carefully to what most folks in the Dallas and Texas Bars say about her, you'll get the same idea.

So I don't care that she's "right on life." John F'ing Kerry is "right on life." What I care about is whether Harriet Miers has a well-grounded judicial philosophy consistent with the proper interpretation of the Constitution; if she does, then Roe and the even more bizarre Casey will soon be relics of a darker time. There is, however, precious little to suggest that Miers will do more than bleat about how she's personally nauseated by abortion, but will uphold the "central holding" of Roe, and once again call the lumpen Volk to a glorious future of following. In other words, there must be a bulwark against the natural tendency of human beings to accrete power to themselves, a bulwark O'Connor and Kennedy sorely lack, and a bulwark that, to all appearances, Miers lacks.

So let us not forget the prime mover here: It was Bush who chanced breaking the base when the chance to change the Court for decades was finally at stake. But everyone aiming their spleen at Bush these days has forgotten something very important: He is the head of the Party, but he is not the Party. He is the President, not the President and Congress. He is not the group of Republicans pushing involuntary human experimentation, for expedience or moral deficiency or profit. He is a President who would like to have another Supreme Court Justice to his credit.

I certainly blame Bush for this. But I blame Rick Santorum, for loyally getting behind Arlen Specter and dooming us to one more RINO in the Senate, a limiting force on the President's ability to ever put Roe in jeopardy. I blame Bill Frist, who could not hold his caucus together well enough to put in place the structural conditions needed to fulfill the Party's promise to pro-lifers. I blame John McCain, and every Republican who was determined to hold their blessed extra-Constitutional privileges above all else when the filibuster was at issue, because you gotta know Bush took a look at the numbers when he made this pick.

Because you see, despite the apologia for the Deal, the truth was apparent from the start: The decision to keep the filibuster in place -- to preserve a privilege for the blowhards in the upper chamber -- was the death of our chance to break Roe. Oh, sure, they've now given their imprimatur to Miers. Wonderful. John McCain's ego must be cooing. And the pro-life movement is now suffering for it.

As I said at the time:

Mark me on this: We were just sold down the river. Because now, when a Supreme Court nominee who will demolish Roe, who will replace Sandy Windvane O'Connor, comes before the Senate, and Ted "Catholic for One Hour on Sundays Only" Kennedy begins his enactment of this much-hallowed, all-be-freaking-praised tradition, this group of losers will not say, "Well, the Democrats are in their right to filibuster here, because this nominee opposes Roe." Heavens no. That'll lose the stupid sheep who vote in the national primaries and upon whom they rely for millions of $20 and $30 donations. No, they'll say, "The Democrats are in their right here because this guy believes in natural law, and that's outside the mainstream," or "This lady opposes affirmative action, and that's outside the mainstream," or "She once wrote a law review article indicating that Congress's Interstate Commerce power is limited where four-trailer trucks are concerned," or somesuch nonsense. ...

To Hell with the war, the debt, the dollar, the deficit, hallowed Senate tradition, and everything else. Legalized abortion on demand just got another ten years of life. Ten million more dead for a Senate "tradition." Mark me on this.

Let us be clear on something here: Pro-lifers will not be to the GOP what Blacks inexplicably are to the Democrat Party. If the difference between you and the Democrat Party is the difference between being functionally pro-choice and being assertedly pro-choice; if you have, finally, abandoned even the pretense of believing in Reagan's principles; then voting for you is only slightly less than material cooperation with evil.

As a wiser Editor than I put it, we are in this pickle because you have played as much a role as the Democrats in allowing the consent of the governed to be supplanted by the dictates of nine unelected lawyers. Great issues are now fought through proxies on the Supreme Court, and you appear to have no desire to place even a passable knight on the field for us. You have sown the wind, ladies and gentlemen; now reap the whirlwind.

Therefore, here is where I stand, and where, I suggest, most pro-lifers and believers in Federalism will stand soon enough: We gave you a governing majority. We supported idiots over slightly more qualified idiots, we targeted decent politicians for defeat, we gave our time, talent, and treasure (I gave treasure I didn't have to Martinez's, Thune's, DeMint's, and Coburn's campaigns, for this very day), to hold that governing majority. From this side of things, it looks like you just spat in our eyes, patted us on the head, and went about business as usual.

No more. Not one more dime from me; not one more vote for a Republican who says great things about a culture of life but protects the culture of death, all the while spending like a Democrat; not one more knock on a door for a get-out-the-vote effort; not one more inch. Not until Harriet Miers joins John Roberts in overturning Roe. Oh, certainly, John McCain's primary run will be even more painful, if I have my way; but if he clears the primaries, precisely why should I vote for him? Or for any other Republican? Where is the material difference?

The answer, at this moment, appears to be There is none. And there is no reason to support them.

Prove me wrong, or lose any thoughts of my loyalty, and of any consistency in my voting.

Best regards,

Thomas Crown

cc:

Sen. Rick Santorum
Rep. Dennis Hastert
Sen. Tom Coburn
Sen. Jim DeMint
Sen. John Thune
Sen. Mel Martinez

This dates to April 1, 2005. It includes additions by good friends, that I include because I'm afraid of how much material will be lost when RedState gets its next makeover.

One of the giants of the twentieth century is dead.

Karol Wojtyla was a man of salt and light, who took the Gospel message throughout the world, even to nations that opposed his very existence. He fought against the culture of death as an eloquent spokesman for the unique value of every human life. He was a suffering servant for Mankind, with his eyes always on heaven and earth at the same time.

I will speak as a Catholic first, as a conservative second.

He embodied the faith. That might sound grandiose, but it is not. He spoke of the things of heaven and earth interchangeably and yet in their proper spheres. He stood time and again for the weakest among us, and reminded us that we have duties to them beyond mere lip service. He called evil by its right name, but reminded us that evil is parasitic on good; that evil is merely separation from God, and that all that will right itself through the power of Christ in the end.

While never giving in to a distortion of the Gospel, he reminded us that Christianity carries with it a radical preference for the poor. No fan of communism, and never enthralled by socialism, yet never opposed to capitalism, he nevertheless reminded us that capitalism is not inherently good, and frequently produces unjust results. He reminded us that our portion in this world is charity.

He fought the willful slaughter of millions of defenseless children as surely as he fought the murder of the aged and infirm. He was called tyrant, murderer, oppressor, theocrat, and words a thousand times worse, but he never once yielded to anger in their face. He was called a reactionary by those opposed to him, even as he built and expanded on the infallible theology of Vatican II. He was accused of misunderstanding human sexuality while he developed the most fluent theological doctrine on the matter in the history of the Church. For his contributions to the Faith alone, he should be canonized as a Doctor.

So great has been his leadership that the dream of a united Church is now no longer merely a dream.

I speak now as a conservative. He fought the Soviet Union, undeniably one of the most evil things Men have ever wrought, not with arms, but with faith and words and moral clarity. There is a reason the KGB wished him dead in the 1980s: He was one of the greatest threats they ever faced, merely for demanding that the words of a 2,000 year dead carpenter be taken seriously.

He reminded the world that there is strength in tradition, and there is value in every human life. He gave those of us on the Right moral strength to continue in the harshest of times, while nevertheless reminding us of our own failings.

We lose a suffering servant of God and Man today. We are poorer for it. He is infinitely richer.

Update [2005-4-1 22:30:27 by Thomas]: I want to add something I neglected to add before, for which I thank God too infrequently. While there are those who play up (and in some cases misattribute) the less than perfect treatment the Church has accorded our spiritual forebears, there is no way to deny that grievous things have been done to Jews throughout the years since Christ was put on the Cross, with Christian apathy, support, or outright act. Vatican II began the process of atonement and reconciliation. This Pope, while not completing the process, has reminded us that we Christians would not be but for our Older Brothers, and that God doesn't make promises he goes on to break. It would be easy to say that his prayer at the Wailing Wall, racked with pain every step of the way, was a way of atoning for the sins of Christians against Jews throughout the centuries; but it is more than that. It was a reminder that all Christians owe that pilgrimage, at some level, for those we wounded, and for ourselves.

As a Catholic, as a conservative, and as a human being, I tell you this: Be thankful for this, if nothing else.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

Update [2005-4-1 13:50:54 by trevino]:

The words of Karol Wojtyła.

---

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness...." (2 Timothy 4:7-8)

Pope John Paul II has passed, but his legacies of faith and freedom remain in the world. In this time of sorrow and reflection, it falls upon us to honor the fallen and the principles which guided him.

In that spirit, the editors of RedState honor the life of Karol Wojtyła by encouraging our readers to take a moment today to support the work of two
organizations that carry on the Holy Father's legacy.

Priests for Life is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization devoted with a mission directly informed by the late Pope's devotion to the culture of life:

"[To assist] clergy and laity to fight the culture of death ... to unite and encourage all in the Church to give special emphasis to the
life issues in their ministry ... and to help them take a more vocal and active role in the pro-life movement!"

They carry on his passion for the defense of the defenseless through the hands, feet, and hearts of his Church -- and its allies of all faiths. You can make your donation here.

In remembrance of the Pope's extraordinary efforts to secure freedom for all the nations of the world, we also encourage you to support the Victims of Communism Memorial.

"The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a non-profit organization, was established by an Act of Congress to build a memorial in Washington, DC to commemorate the more than 100 million victims of communism; to honor those who successfully resisted communist tyranny; to educate current and future generations about communism's crimes against humanity; and to pay tribute to those who helped win the Cold
War."

You can support their work here.

Please note that this represents our desire to memorialize the life and work of a great man. Neither organization has asked us to do this, and neither should be construed as willfully profiting from this tragedy.

Bless you for your generosity -- and don't forget to add your $0.02.

This piece is from March 25, 2005.

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers - and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerc - and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution - and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.

--Attributed, probably erroneously, to Alexis de Tocqueville

Today is Good Friday. The majority of this country celebrates today as the day that the Son of Man allowed himself to suffer and die for humanity's sins, so that Death would no longer prevail.

Today, a woman lies in a bed, dying fastest from dehydration (though starvation is doubtless carrying a toll). Her body is unable to flush wastes from her system, slowly poisoning her. Her skin is flaking. Her tissue is starting to lose consistency. She is dying a death of which any sane man would be terrified.

She dies because courts in one of the Several States ordered her feeding and hydration tubes removed, following one law passed by a legislature, ignoring another. When given the opportunity to intervene, the government of the United States did so only slightly, and hesitatingly.

She will die.

And so I now want to talk to you about federalism.

I have seen the word "federalism" much bandied about the last several weeks, largely as a proxy for the ideas that either (1) states have rights; (2) the Federal government lacks certain powers; (3) the Federal government should not intervene in certain areas of "personal concern"; and/or (4) it is "illegal" for the Federal government to attempt to overturn or interfere with the decision of a judge sitting in one of the several States, preferably but not exclusively with the State's legislature on his side.

This is completely and utterly wrong.

It was the peculiar genius of the Founders of this nation that they conceived of one of the most paradoxically brilliant ideas in the history of political philosophy: That more government would preserve the rights and lives of men than would less; or, more accurately, that more governments would produce this result.

To effect this, the Founders built on the strength of the States existing at the time of the Founding, and added a Federal government of enumerated powers supreme in certain areas of the law. But the idea of federalism would not be if it had been left at that; rather, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments notwithstanding, necessarily, the Federal government had to be a competing, coequal sovereign, actively trying to legislate where the States did.

This was not hard to conceive. It was an essential element of the Founders' conception of the world that the sovereign's duties at the very least reached into life, liberty, and the protection of property. The Founders also knew that men would never be angels, and so the Federal government would invariably try to expand its power into the realms of the States. They counted on muscular states asserting their powers in that conflict, and as a result, we the people wouldn't be terribly bothered. This is why they wrote:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(Emphasis added.)

Of course, much of this no longer matters. We, the people, gutted the strength of the several States when we ratified the Seventeenth Amendment and, consequently, let the Federal Government decide that the Fourteenth Amendment gave it a crowbar into the states' affairs. Blame the progressives. I do.

The point of all this, however, is that federalism is a mere means to an end. A cleverly crafted means, to be sure, but it is not an end in itself.

It is not a religious faith to be invoked when difficult questions are presented. It is not an aspirational goal. It does not answer the big questions; it provides the framework in which one answers them.

It assuredly does not mean that the states may make decisions without expecting the Federal government to poke its eye in.

In one of the few intelligent points I've ever made, I once asked this: Suppose the Thirteenth Amendment (and, for the sake of argument, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth) were revoked tomorrow. This would return the question of slavery to status quo ante, which is to say, it would be a matter in the province of the several States. Suppose Iowa reinstituted chattel slavery. I'm a citizen of the State of Florida, which does not, in this analysis, legalize slavery. Would it then be ok for me to oppose slavery? To try to Federalize the question again, and have it outlawed? Because I'd really like to.

I was a Federalist in 1994. I was in the Federalist Society in law school. I'd be in it again if I could remember to pay my dues. Federalism has few bigger fans than I. But it is, as I said, merely a means to an end. And it is not, no matter what you might say, an absolute bar on the Federal government's attempts to save the lives of her citizens; rather, it encourages it.

For the idea that one of our governments should no longer try with all its might to meet its duty to protect the life of one of its citizens means that we are no longer living in the shadow of our ancestors. It means we've forgotten why Federalism exists, and instead that we worship its misbegotten child, the descendant of all the strife of the hundred years following the Civil War, the shadow called states' rights.

It means we are no longer great.

This celebration dates to November 11, 2004.

Well, the old, sorry codger is dead. No, I don't mean Bob Byrd, Fritz Hollings, or Hillary Clinton's right ankle. I mean Yasser Arafat.

Blessed with Yakov Smirnov's good looks, Mike Dukakis's charm, Pee Wee Herman's physical stature, and Adolf Hitler's easygoing love of peace (and Jews), Arafat had the good fortune of being an unrepentant racist with a penchant for incredible violence and a willingness to engage in unremitting slaughter at a time when news organizations could write things like this with a straight face (from the link above):

Yasser Arafat, who triumphantly forced his people's plight into the world spotlight but failed to achieve his lifelong quest for Palestinian statehood, died Thursday at age 75.

Instead of, you know:

Yasser "Push Them Into the Sea" Arafat, an Egyptian engineer who rode varying waves of Arab Nationalism, Islamist terror, and the latter-day development of Palestinian national identity to absurd heights of international acclaim, including numerous visits to the Clinton White House, finally went to Hell Thursday, forty-odd years too late.

But he doesn't matter anymore.

Others will say more, and better, about how this might change the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict; doubtless, others will eulogize the vicious little lunatic in all sorts of ways (I prefer "Nothing so became him in life as his leaving it," but that's me).

But what I find truly remarkable is that this is the first time in two years that the little snot has mattered, and he had to die to do it. (This is called a "mixed blessing.") Wanna know why? Well, having Ariel Sharon hole him up like the rat he is in a single building certainly helped. But I, personally, credit President Bush with this master stroke:

It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself.

In the situation the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable. My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence. ...

Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure. This will require an externally supervised effort to rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services. The security system must have clear lines of authority and accountability and a unified chain of command.

And just like that, no American legitimacy, no excuses for blowing up Jewish kids in pizza parlors, and no need for Yasser Arafat any more.

It took Bush all of a week after winning re-election to sell out conservatives again. But let us remember why we supported him so: He has moral clarity. And that clarity can yield impressive results.

So, we bid a fond adieu to the murdering little psychopath with the carefully arranged keffiyeh; wish him well in Asmodeus's torture chamber; wonder if the rumors were true; and have a slightly brighter hope for tomorrow, because we finally have a President who knows that inviting terrorists over for dinner at the White House does not discourage their basest tendencies.

This one dates to January 21, 2005.

"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

-Inaugural Address, President George Walker Bush, January 20, 2005

There are many good reasons to be a Republican, and that unflowery, bold, idealistic statement in the best tradition of Ronald Reagan is one of them.

But it's not why I'm a Republican.

The reason I signed up for all of the junk the Republican National Committee and every subpart thereof sends; the reason why I voted Republican down to the freaking Water District Manager; the reason why, should I ever be stupid enough to actually contemplate a run for elective office, I would unhesitatingly file the appropriate papers for a Republican primary, is this: Abortion. Beginning, end, total. Everything else is nice. I like lower taxes, and think it is good to keep them low as a policy matter. I believe in a robust national defense. I believe in human liberty. I think the aggrandizement of the State is one of the greatest moral and intellectual errors in human history. I like elephants.

But when it comes down to it, the reason I'm a Republican is this: One party's platform reflects a fundamental belief that men are inherently possessed of a right to life, and that life is the predicate from which all other rights flow. The other does not.

And now, I think they're trying to push me out. And a lot of the Party with me.

Let us not put too fine a point on this: To use Mark Shea's characterizations, I would much rather vote for the Stupid Party than the Evil Party. If the Stupid Party is also the Evil Party (Lite), well, then, Knights of the Old Republic II is out for the PC next month; I've never read anything by Edmund Burke, and I do need to remedy that; and with the twelve or so hour days I put in, I suspect my kids would like to see me more. My wife might, too. What I don't need to do is follow politics; organize; get out votes; or vote myself. Those are things one does because one cares.

And it would appear that the GOP is trying to shove the social conservatives into the corner. That notwithstanding, I'll be honest: If you offered me the end of legalized abortion in return for gay marriage, I'm there with bells on. I suspect the latter presages wrack and ruin; the former is the murder of millions.

I could handle it as Bush appointed a pro-baby murderchoice Cabinet (including Secretary of State and Attorney General). It's a big tent Party, and the guy at the top makes the final calls. I'm cool with that. But now this:

Ken Mehlman, incoming chairman of the Republican National Committee, has asked abortion advocate and party activist, Joann Davidson of Ohio to become the next co-chairman of the party.

Davidson, a former state legislator, has served on the advisory board of Republicans for Choice since its inception in 1990. The group has stumped for pro-abortion Republican candidates and lobbied to change the strong pro-life plank in the Republican Party's platform ever since.

After word of Davidson's potential selection filtered back to the group, Republicans for Choice posted a message on its Internet web site encouraging Davidson to "make sure the concerns of pro-choice and moderate Republicans are heard within the Republican National Committee headquarters."

With the selection generating national publicity, the message has since been removed.

Taken alone, this is a nothing. A pro-life Cabinet would make this irrelevant, or more accurately, an important concession to the minority of the Party that hews to this take on ordered liberty.

But.

There is a point past which loyalty to a cause that shows no reward to you is either blind religious devotion or utter idiocy. I'm Catholic, and I'm not (that) stupid. If the Party thinks we're along for the ride and too benighted to notice things like this, well, that's at their own peril. We may not be the majority of the Party apparatus, but I note that when it came time to gather votes for the election, Team Bush manifestly did not rely on getting out the pro-choice vote. And it showed.

The next round of Supreme Court Justices -- what I, at least, am fighting for -- had best not be Souters. It would be ... interesting to watch the Party try to win without pro-lifers.

This post is from January 31, 2005.

To all those who always see another Vietnam, and who would have cut and run and left Iraqis to the same fate as the South Vietnamese;

To the sunshine lovers of liberty;

To those for whom defeating Bush, at all costs means more than celebrating liberty;

To those who've torn shoulder muscles moving the goalposts;

To those who saw another Stalingrad (and secretly hoped it would be so) in the fall of Baghdad;

To the Party that wanted to see the Eastern Europeans and South and Central Americans languish under Soviet domination into eternity, and that seems to feel the same way about Arabs;

To those who rallied to ANSWER's side, Stalinism be damned, the lives and fortunes of millions be damned;

To those who could not shake the habits of a lifetime of calculated isolationism;

To those who glorify tyrants everywhere, to the point of treating as legitimate Potemkin elections:

I echo two great men, the first:

America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally. ..

Now we are standing inside this symbol of our democracy. Now we hear again the echoes of our past: a general falls to his knees in the hard snow of Valley Forge; a lonely President paces the darkened halls, and ponders his struggle to preserve the Union; the men of the Alamo call out encouragement to each other; a settler pushes west and sings a song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the unknowing air.

It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That's our heritage; that is our song. We sing it still. For all our problems, our differences, we are together as of old, as we raise our voices to the God who is the Author of this most tender music. And may He continue to hold us close as we fill the world with our sound—sound in unity, affection, and love—one people under God, dedicated to the dream of freedom that He has placed in the human heart, called upon now to pass that dream on to a waiting and hopeful world.

And the man who built on that:

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time. So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

And I say this:

FREEDOM.

And it's just beginning.