But ‘Pussy’ is only implied!

The RNC released this video about Nancy Pelosi’s attacks on the CIA, using a James Bond theme and finishing with the tagline, “Lack of Leadership. Democrats Galore.” This is a play on the name Pussy Galore, the evil woman in the 1964 Bond flick, Goldfinger. As Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom says, “all kerfuffle breaks loose.”

Try to read Taylor Marsh’s hissie fit (this term is a derivative of hysteria, whose Greek roots remind us that the patriarchy has been oppressing womyn for 3,000 years) and never forget the accusation: It’s Republicans who don’t have a sense of humor.

Too bad this happened too late for National Offend A Feminist Week. But thanks to the RNC for keeping alive the festive holiday spirit.

(Hat tip: Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Excuse me, but Allah is just wrong:

I’d love to know who among the Republican brain trust thought this was a good idea. Even if their motives were pure, after seeing what happened to Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” comment, they simply have to be more attuned to how their message will be received and whether they’re giving their opponents easy opportunities to distort it.

No, this is brilliant. Get your enemy to promote your message, and do it in such a way that everybody who clicks will sit through the whole video in hopes of seeing — “Pussy!” — what the Left tells them they’re going to see.

The joke is on the critics, of course, since the same term is a common substitute for “wimp,” and “Democrats Galore” rather cuts to the heart of what the GOP is really trying to say about Democrats’ approach to national security, eh?

Lighten up, man. Jimmie Bise has more on Pelosi-palooza, and Donald Douglas shows the vastness of Pelosia’s gaping idiocy.

(P.S.: Note that when feminists are promoting The Vagina Monologues, it’s “empowering” to shout this from the rooftops. Only when Republicans try it does the Left suddenly become as prudish as a Victorian schoolmarm.)

Update II: by Smitty
Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice delivers unintended comedy:

But it’s indicative of the continued lowering of the bar of American political discourse: even by the increasingly sleazy standard of political ads utilized by both sides, this ad is a particularly smelly one.

I’m not sure what clip you watched, Joe, but the one I saw was roughly as sleazy as, say, a Police Squad episode. Recommend good diet and excercise, Mr. Gandelman.

Steele’s speech on GOP future

Allah is surprised by the excellence:

I remind you that this is Yet Another Invitation I Didn’t Get.

Scandal for Steele at RNC?

Ralph Z. Hallow reports today on accusations of favoritism in hiring at the Republican National Committee. At the American Spectator blog, I write:

This is potentially devastating. There are too many out-of-work Republican operatives for the RNC chief to be awarding six-figure salaries under circumstances that invite accusations of favoritism. I’ve been a Michael Steele fan for years, but he must keep in mind those 77 votes for Katon Dawson on the sixth ballot.

It’s already a Memeorandum thread, and we can expect some pretty acrimonious reaction from Steele’s Republican critics.

As with so many previous problems afflicting the GOP, take note that this is not about ideology, it’s about the “jobs for the boys” mentality of Beltway operatives. You’ve got no idea how many ex-RNC employees and unemployed former Bush administration staffers one meets at D.C. cocktail parties nowadays. This Hallow story will not ease their pain, and Steele could be destroyed by a toxic sea of grassroots discontent fed by Republican political professionals.

UPDATE: Marc Ambinder is dismissive of Hallow’s scoop, but talks of Steele’s opposition inside RNC:

A good number of long-time members can’t accept the fact that Steele controls the party. They don’t like the people he’s put in place, but they can’t find any egregious internal missteps, aside from perhaps the faux pas of paying some of his aides a generous salary. Steele has opened up many RNC contracts to competitive bidding, even though he has been criticized for smaller financial decisions. (Emphasis added.)

I’m sorry, but paying $180,000 to an “outreach director” is a bit more than a faux pas, especially with so many GOP operatives out of work. My friend Tara Setmayer is communication director for Dana Rohrabacher for about $90,000 a year. Wanna bet Tara would have taken that “outreach director” job for $100,000?

UPDATE II: Saul Anuzis is live-Twittering Steele’s lunchtime “future of the GOP” speech, Yet Another Invitation I Didn’t Get. Longtime readers will note the pattern: The more important the event, the more likely it is to be Yet Another Invitation I Didn’t Get.

Occasionally I do cover important events, not because I’m invited, but because somebody accidentally lets me find out about it so that I can B.S. my way past security. B.S.ing past security is a vital skill for The Least Important Journalist in Washington.

Ready for ‘hip-hop Republicans’?

Michael Steele thinks you are:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
The RNC’s first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party’s image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times.

Did somebody say, “off the hook”?

Now you asked me, baby,
Say, what’s my name?
I said I go by the name
Of Stacy McCain
And I’m the best —
I’m the creme de la creme!
My friends are all jealous
‘Cause I’m better than them.
I’m a master of the amorous arts,
A well-known breaker
Of the ladies’ hearts.
I been breakin’ hearts
From coast to coast.
I’m in the Guinness Book of Records
‘Cause I broke the most.

Now, it’s time to introduce you
To my man Mike.
He’s a free-stylin’ daddy
Like I know you’ll like.
Gonna bring some magic action
To the GOP.
With some super satisfaction
From the RNC.
Democrats ain’t that
‘Cause they can’t bring the funk
Like Mike excites the night
With the elephant’s trunk.

Now, let me hear you cheer
The American Dream!
From Maryland, our chairman’s
Gonna make you scream.
Like the Reagan Revolution
And like in ’94,
Mike’s got the Right solution
That you want some more.
See the fact is that your taxes
Are still way too high.
And Obama?
Mama, that Democrat
Is gonna drain you dry.

Now I could keep on syncopatin’
‘Til the break of dawn,
But the time for celebratin’
Will be later on.
And just in case you missed it,
Ladies, let’s be clear:
Mike’s number is unlisted
But the party’s right here,
With a hiphop chairman
At the RNC,
He’s a mojo repairman —
And you heard it from me!
Is that fresh? Is it def?
Is my jive signified?
Baby, I just bring the beats.
I hiphop. You decide.

RNC Tech Summit

“To call it hastily arranged would be an understatement. The RNC only announced it on Monday, giving participants two days to RSVP and four to prepare presentations. At the same time, organizers made the uncharacteristic decision to open it to the public: Anyone could show up and speak.”

Yet another invitation I never got. How do they ever expect to fix their problems without asking me?

(Via Hot Air Headlines.)

Attention, Chairman Steele

Dear Sir:

I’m at the home of mutual friends — you’ve enjoyed their hospitality — where the dear lady and I were discussing the wretched cluelessness of Republican political operations, including this good ol’ boy network of consultants/vendors who are overpaid to deliver crap. There is this thing where, if you’re somebody’s buddy from College Republicans 20 or 30 years ago, you therefore will get a contract to do . . . something. 

It’s the old “Jobs for the boys” patronage principle, and the GOP can’t afford to roll that way anymore.

The problem can be summed up, said our mutual friend, in two words: Charlie Black.

And then later, our friend made an unintentional pun when she said, “There needs to be some sort of blacklist” of people that don’t get RNC business anymore. Ever. Period.

Well, a Freudian slip, perhaps, but I think you get the idea. As my country kin might say, “There’s too many pigs for the tits.” And as I can imagine that the whole world right now is trying to get your attention to tell you what to do or to seek favors, all I can do is throw this up on my blog and tell you that our friend has hit the nail squarely on the head. Some fat pigs who’ve been sucking on the GOP tits too long need to be retired, voluntarily or otherwise.

Chairman Steele, you are the new sheriff in town. To the Charlie Black class of Republican Party operatives, you should say, “There is this thing out there called ‘the private sector,’ where you get paid according to results. Good luck with it, because we’re not going to pay you to lose any more elections. Nice doing business with you. Now get out of my office.”

‘You know where he stands’

Dave Weigel interviewed a Republican activist from Virginia at the RNC meeting:

According to Chase, what the Republicans needed was more clarity, more conservatism, and more exposing of how the Democrats wanted to run people’s
lives — how they wanted to decide which baby birds got the worms. “I supported Mitt Romney, because John McCain was not a real conservative,” Chase said. Chase has been given new hope by her party’s unanimous vote in the House of Representatives against the stimulus package. Going into [Friday’s] vote for Republican National Committee chairman, Chase supported Katon Dawson, the conservative head of the South Carolina Republican Party. “He’s a fantastic messenger,” Chase explained. “You know where he stands.”

Like you knew where George Allen stood. The operative word here is “you,” by which Jo-Ann Chase means to indicate the conservative base, who require constant assurance that their candidate is a True Believer who is with them 100% on every issue, or else they fear they’re being sold out.

This kind of political paranoia, this obsessive fear that your Republican friends are not really your friends — and perhaps not really Republican — has a basis in fact. (Cf., presidents named “Bush.”) But it is stoked to the point of psychopathology by certain prominent people (I won’t name names) who don’t seem to understand a fundamental principle of coalition politics: You can’t govern if you don’t win.

I share with Ms. Chase her disdain for John McCain, for whom I would never vote if you put a gun to my head. But at some point, you have to get over that particular species of recto-cranial inversion which tells you that Katon Dawson is what the RNC needs at this desperate juncture. Katon Dawson would have been fine when the party was at its zenith of power circa 2003. At this point, however, he simply will not do.

That isn’t really Katon Dawson’s fault, nor Jo-Ann Chase’s fault, but it is the reality of the situation, and conservatives who want to live in a cloud-cuckooland where every swing voter understands what is meant by “true Republican principles” have got to get a grip on reality, or else the GOP will go the way of the Whigs.

The Republican Party’s problems may not really be as bad as they look right now, in the immediate aftermath of S.S. Maverick‘s encounter with the Obama iceberg, but solving those problems will require some very shrewd messaging and very shrewd messengers, and if Jo-Ann Chase wants to do something to save her party from further disasters, she needs to get her prayer circles working for Michael Steele. He’s gonna need all the help he can get.

Steele and the dreaded M-word

My latest at Pajamas Media:

You knew the contest to become chairman of the Republican National Committee was getting ugly when they started throwing around nasty slurs like “moderate.”
Michael Steele got tagged with the dreaded M-word as part of a vicious guilt-by-association smear. He sustained more damage from his acquaintance with RINOs like Christie Todd Whitman than Barack Obama suffered for hanging out with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.
After Steele survived a bruising six-ballot battle Friday for the GOP chairmanship, Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press made sure to cast the election in ideological terms, dubbing the former Maryland lieutenant governor “the most moderate candidate in the field.”
In truth, Steele is a committed pro-life Catholic who proudly calls himself a “Reagan Republican,” and ideological differences had relatively little impact on the RNC’s choice. . . .

You should read the whole thing.

‘The RNC has been controlled since 1988 by cretinous b******s’

Thus saith Quin Hillyer, in answer to Jim Antle’s remarks about the disconnect between the GOP and the conservative movement, remarks provoked by my own wee-hour musings on that subject.

Nothing like stirring up a bloody good row, just for the hilarious fun of it all. Speaking of which:

That Robert Stacy McCain is a tedious nothing will come as no surprise to those of us with a Web browser and the ability to read.

Freddie, you just earn a spot on my quote wall. If you’re going to cut a man, eviscerate him. Style points!

UPDATE: Sorry it took so long to update, but I was (a) exchanging e-mail with mentors, colleagues and proteges; (b) cross-posting at AmSpecBlog, and meanwhile (c) honing my blade.

Our friend Mr. deBoer has dabbled a bit in the clever art of making “The Conservative Case for [INSERT LIBERAL CAUSE HERE].” Having previously noted Conor Friederdorf’s “Conservative Case for Gay Marriage,” we now behold Freddie deBoer’s “Conservative Case for Global Warning Hysteria”:

Faced with broad scientific consensus, a clear notion of individual responsibility, and clear and present threats to our health and our economy, environmentalism wasn’t just for environmentalists anymore. Happily, the growing public consensus that climate change must be genuinely confronted has translated into bigger implications for environmentalism and public policy. Genuine reflection about the limits of our consumption and the impact of our behavior on the world around us — profoundly conservative concerns — is back on the national political table, in a way that has never been possible before.

The discerning mind comprehends at once what a universe of rhetorical opportunity awaits our rising generation of conservative intellectuals. If the “The Conservative Case for the Trillon-Dollar Stimulus” has not yet been published, it is only because David Kuo had to cease operations while that essay was still being drafted. But fertile minds are now busily inquiring after new venues for publication of:

• “The Conservative Case for Card Check”
• “The Conservative Case for Trans-Fat Bans”
• “The Conservative Case for Abolition of the Electoral College”
• “The Conservative Case for Labial Piercing, Face Tattooing and Other Extreme Body Modifications”

You get the drift. One supposes that these young geniuses, once they’ve finished writing “the conservative case” for everything on the contemporary scene, will then proceed to write critical histories such as “The Conservative Case for Pol Pot,” “The Conservative Case for the Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand,” “The Conservative Case for a Regicide Peace,” and so forth.

Excuse my amusement. A protege e-mailed Saturday to mention that my name came up when she recently interviewed for a publishing job. If she should get the job, maybe her influence could help an old geezer get a small contract for a pamphlet urging what nowadays would be considered a most startling idea:

The Conservative Case for Conservatism.

UDPATE II: I stand accused of “shameless Palin-worship.” But I’m never gonna pull 250K visits per month with “Daniel Larison bikini pics” . . .

Salute to RNC Chairman Michael Steele

Video via Hot Air:

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And hey, remember how Dems screamed “fight the smears” anytime anybody mentioned Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers? Well, look who’s dumping guilt-by-association attacks on Steele. (H/T: Amanda Carpenter.)

The new chairman gets congratulations from Ed Driscoll, CrankyCon, and Hugh Hewitt. General jubilation at AOSHQ.

PREVIOUSLY:

• RNC: The Man of Steele
• Ready to rumble at RNC
• Saltsman withdraws from RNC race
• Blackwell ‘dangerously incompetent’?
• RNC chair debate
• But seriously, folks . . .
• Steele blasts RNC ‘cocktail party’