Meanwhile, a somewhat belated note on the Chuck Hagel thing.

John Podheretz speaks for me here:

If confirmation hearings actually served as the job interview for the Senate — which must approve a presidential Cabinet appointment, under the rules of the Constitution — Hagel would’ve been dead in the water. But of course they rarely do.

What that hearing did do was give the lie to all those who said there were no grounds on which to oppose Hagel. By the hearing’s end, there was precious little ground to do anything but oppose Hagel — except for the key fact that the president wanted him.

Well, he has him, and mazel tov.

Although I’m going to add: there’s probably a bunch of Democratic Senators looking at the Obama/Woodward meltdown right now and thinking Wait.  I did this President a favor by voting for that schlemiel?  What was I thinking?

Answer’s easy, of course: they weren’t.

Hugo Chavez either is, or is not, dead.

Either way, my response is going to be… a shrug.  Just another as-close-to-Commie-as-he-dares strongman thug – which, frankly, was and is a lot less than Chavez’s fan club either thinks or thought.  I’m being a little temporally vague there because as soon as Chavez is actually dead he’ll rapidly be abandoned as an inspirational figure by guilty norteamericano liberals and supplanted by whatever as-close-to-Commie-as-he-dares strongman thug takes his place.  They come, they go, and weep for Latin America, which never seems to catch a break on this for too long.

My one-word responses to several stories.

Via RCP: “I Have No Idea What Republicans Are Doing – Jonathan Chait, NY Magazine”

…Good.

Via Drudge: “Just as Nixon went to China, should Obama go to Iran? – Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor”

…No.

I got nothing, sorry.

Today is the day that ‘munchkin’ enters the American political lexicon. @sjgames

My post about Barack Obama as a power gamer was referenced in National Review Online, with my use of the term ‘munchkin’ quoted (as well as the meme of The Gun Is My Skill List).  By the way, both terms originate[*] in the seminal and influential work Munchkins Guide to Power Gaming…  wait a second: sixty-three bucks new?  Steve Jackson Games should do a reprint.

Anyway, this is a moment of quiet pride for me.  It’s like I’m rust!

Moe Lane

*For the sake of accuracy, this point from @sjgames is well-taken:

…although as I noted in my response, the Guide really is what at least popularized the term.

Democrats: STOP SHOWING US THAT DEBT CLOCK!

Poor Democratic party members. How they hate the imposition of messy objective reality on their warm, fuzzy fantasy narrative:

Some members of Congress apparently don’t like to be reminded about how much debt the country continues to rack up.

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing Tuesday on the budget, two Democrats complained after House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling instructed that two monitors in the hearing room display a real-time running national debt clock.

I imagine that they did: it’s like inviting a vampire over and then sitting him between two spraying fountains of holy water. I wonder who complai…

California Rep. Maxine Waters and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison both issued complaints about the displays, according to video of the hearing.

…I might have known.

Moe Lane

(Via Drudge)

RS Interview: Craig Stowell.

This was an interesting interview: Craig Stowell, for those who are not familiar with New Hampshire politics, is one of the Republican activists involved who in 2012 successfully fought HB 437, which would have repealed New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage (SSM) law. He was also recently featured in an ad cut by the pro-SSM group Respect for Marriage; a group that has recently come under fire for using footage of former First Lady Laura Bush without her approval or even knowledge… OK, that’s not true: they weren’t really criticized at all for it.  But they should have been: speaking in terms of sheer consistency, it’s not very polite to insist that the Bushes stay out of the public limelight after GWB’s term of office, then drag them right back into it again whenever it’s convenient.  Respect for Marriage should have at least asked first.

…And that hopefully will give you an idea of the tone of my interview with Craig.  While it goes without saying that the opinions expressed in this interview regarding SSM are strictly my own personal ones, and should not be seen as reflective of either RedState.com’s or Eagle Publishing’s, I was not interested in doing a softball interview.  In other words, I hope that I asked at least some of the questions and addressed some of the concerns that my more socially conservative readers would have, in my place.

https://moelane.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/craigstowellInt.mp3

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Progress Kentucky: inbred, racist, xenophobic hicks.

Or, the Kentucky Curb-stomp.

Let me start by noting something: yes, many people have at least a small problem with Mitch McConnell. Including myself, sometimes. But that does not mean that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy will simply tolerate anybody calling his wife a traitorous double agent for the ChiComs. Which is what the rabidly liberal Super PAC (the Democrats still have those? Hypocrites) Progress Kentucky just did.

Recently, the group turned its attention to McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, with a focus on her race.

In a Feb. 14 Twitter message, Progress says: “This woman has the ear of (Sen. McConnell)—she’s his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!”

[snip]

Other messages from Progress’s social networking account about Chao have run for the past several days, saying her “Chinese (money)” is buying state elections.

Continue reading Progress Kentucky: inbred, racist, xenophobic hicks.

Good afternoon, Apple Computers.

I just wanted to tell you something: once you sell me one of your computers, you do not have the right to tell me what I will do with it.  I understand that your standard customer may be happy enough to allow you to choose FOR them, but I come from a more, ah, self-confident tradition. I don’t need your patronizing – and, quite frankly, provincial – attitude getting in the way of my work. And if I say that your iPads are computers that have been artificially chained down to fit a curiously stunted intellectual ‘vision,’ then they are motherfucking computers and I SHALL break my own one to my will.

Which I have done.

Have a nice day.

Moe Lane

Tea Party News Network demonstrates how to ensure good publicity.

By stepping up to the plate:

The American Conservative Union (ACU) today announced that the Tea Party News Network will sponsor free WiFi for all CPAC 2013 attendees, including media.  The 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference will be held Thursday, March 14 – Saturday, March 16, 2013.

“We are thrilled that the Tea Party News Network stepped forward to sponsor Wifi for all conference attendees this year,” said ACU Chairman Al Cardenas.

“We’re delighted that we could provide free internet for all CPAC 2013 attendees,” said Scottie Nell Hughes, News Director of the Tea Party News Network. “We wanted to ensure that at the largest annual gathering of conservatives the thousands of bloggers and grassroots conservative activists have the ability to share their thoughts and message with the world.”

Via the Right Sphere.  There were a bunch of people covering CPAC who were kind of annoyed about this; the life of a conservative blogger is a life where you are expected to make bricks without straw, or sometimes even without clay* – and God knows that CPAC and the ACU are already in the middle of its perennial PR battle anyway. TPNN was pretty smart to volunteer to cover the email tab.

Moe Lane

PS: Mind you, the dedicated cellular access and cheap data plan that you can get from Apple for their iPads is a really good reason to acquire one of their tablets.  Now, if I could only get them to let us jailbreak the damned things…

*Thank you, Harry Turtledove.