Due to an unusually busy December, I have not yet had the chance to finalize the ballot for the most coveted crown in the blogosphere, the diamond tiara bestowed upon that distinguished blogress who commands the respect of gay conservatives, the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

Last year, Robin of Berkeley won the coveted tiara with her American Thinker colleague Clarice Feldman joining Neo-neocon in the high-heeled slippers that mark the Regent.

Nominees in that contest included:

• Fausta
• Pam Meister
• Jill of Pundit & Pundette (also at Potluck)
• No Sheeples Here
• Elizabeth Scalia (AKA The Anchoress)
• Ann Althouse
• Sister Toldjah
• Dr. Helen (AKA the Instawife)
• Michelle Malkin
• Tammy Bruce
• Cassy Fiano
• Mary Katherine Ham
• Melissa Clouthier

MeredithAncret nominated http://www.dirtysexandpolitics.com/ but methink she might qualify as a diva herself.  Please feel free to second the above nominees or submit your own either in the comments or in an e-mail.

As you know, we here at GayPatriot define a diva as a strong woman who commands the respect of men.  And once again, it’s time to pick that blogress who best defines that quality.  In past years, I’ve linked previous nominees and diva-esque blogresses.  This year, I’ll link those past posts when I get a moment, but for now will leave it up to you to nominate those most deserving of this coveted honor.

We’ll keep nominations open for one week, through December 15 at which point Bruce and I will pick those lucky ladies to appear on the ballot.

So says blogress diva Ann Althouse:

For all the shouting and chanting and drumming and denouncing that we heard from the minority party, the majority party waited patiently, finally made a tough move, and engaged in no triumphalism. There was no “I won” from Governor Walker. Did you notice the graceful winning?

Via Reader Leah.

So focused have I been on Wisconsin this past week that I put on the back burner a post I was planning on California, then when reading one of my favorite blogresses, caught this comment which almost perfectly summarized my views on Governor Jerry Brown’s first eight weeks back in the governor’s office after twenty-eight year away.  Over at the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin blogged about her conversation with Tea Party leader Mark Meckler:

On California he told me that he thinks Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown is doing a far better job than his Republican predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “If anyone has a chance, [Brown] has a chance” to straighten out the state’s finances, he argued. But he remains skeptical. “I don’t know if he can separate himself from the unions.”

When I read that in “his first executive order as governor, Democrat Jerry Brown ordered state employees to return some 48,000 cell phones paid for by the state“, I wondered why, despite facing bloated state budgets, Arnold had never taken this step.*  Nor did the Governator take steps to eliminate any number of the excesses that Brown has found — and seeks to eliminate.

That said, in going after these cuts, Brown is not looking at some of the structural problems in the state’s spending that need to be fixed.  Like his counterpart in the Badger State, he needs to take on the compensation schemes for public employees.  Here, I share Meckler’s skepticism; I don’t know either if he can take on the public employee unions.

Eccentric Jerry Brown may be, but dogmatic he is not (save perhaps on the environment).  He didn’t, as I wrote last November, earn the nickname Moonbeam “for being a team-player“.  He could surprise us on this one as he’s surprising us on spending.    (more…)

Blogress Divas Regent do have a way of zeroing on those afflicted with Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS).   Here’s Clarice Feldman on the Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen commentary on the charismatic former Alaska governor:

Read the skewering in its entirety and marvel with me at how this gorgeous backwoods gal is felling a whole forest of  hypocritical and under- educated men and women who have been posing as professional writers worthy of our respectful attention to their views.

Via Instapundit.

In a post on ice skater’s Johnny Weir’s comment in coming out as a gay man about “pressure” being “the last thing that would make me want to ‘join’ a community“, Ann Althouse gets at something that many, particularly gay activists, in conversations on coming out:

Some people think of themselves as, above all, individuals, and when others think the most important thing is their membership in a particular group, they resist. They don’t want to be defined by a single quality, especially when it’s a quality that makes other people see them in terms of the group stereotype, and not personal uniqueness. 

There is a lot in which this diva says, so I recommend you both read her post and ponder these words.

It often seems that the gay rights’ movement pursues the notion of group rights rather than individual ones.  That is is why I believe we need develop a conservative message on gays, independent to that developed by the left-leaning gay groups, organizations which are helmed by men and women who with a background in Democratic politics and liberal ideologies seem beholden to statist theories of rights.

Hopefully more on this anon, much more in the coming year.

Well said, Ann. (H/t: Reader Leah)

We’re pleased to announce that, after running neck and neck with her American Thinker colleague Clarice Feldman, Robin of Berkeley edged ahead and is the new claimant of the coveted golden tiara of the rightosphere, the title of Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, also known as the Ethel in honor of Ethel Merman, the greatest Republican diva of all time.

She will be joined in her court by that colleague Clarice as well as neo-neocon who will serve as Conservative Blogress Divas Regent for the coming year.  This award known as the Agnes or Endora in honor of staunch Republican Agnes Moorehead.

(Perhaps we should award an additional title in honor of Republican Jane Russell.)

I regret that I have not had as much time this year to devote to the contest.  This was the first year where I did not suggest any nominees.  And while some of my favorite blogresses did not make this year’s contest, others with whom I had not previously been familiar did.  Thanks to our readers’ nominations, I learned about some smart women offering conservative perspectives in the blogosphere.

I had never previously been aware of this year’s winner, but have appreciated the Berkeley diva’s posts about her journey toward conservatism in a most hostile environment.  I don’t always agree with the conclusions, but do appreciate the thought she puts into her posts — at least those I’ve had the good fortune to read.

So, Robin, congratulations!   Should your duties ever becoming trying, you can turn to Clarice and neoneocon to help you bear the weight of the crown.  And to the other blogresses with whom you competed.

To those divas, er, nominees, thanks for your participation and for using your blogs to challenge the establishment picture of the smart and articulate woman.   Not all such women toe the liberal line.  You have all earned the respect of the gay conservatives, such as us, who have long valued the contributions of strong and free-thinking women such as yourselves.

Balloting closes at midnight tonight.

After extensive consultations with our committee, we have determined that the following blogresses, divas all, are the nominees for the coveted honor of Grande Conservative Blogress Diva 2011, the tiara commonly known as the “Ethel” in honor of one of perhaps the greatest Republican diva of all time.

Runners up will be honored as Conservative Blogress Diva Regent, also known as the Agnes or Endora in honor of another staunchly Republican diva.

Remember, to qualify as a conservative blogress diva, a nominee need only be a strong woman who commands the respect of gay male conservatives. She need not be conservative herself.

Let the cat fight competition begin.

You can vote once a day until midnight on December 31, 2010.

In her thoughtful post on a new gay group called “Equality Matters” (wish someone had instead created “Freedom Matters”), Ann Althouse gets at one reason, I believe, Democrats tried to keep DADT repeal on the back burner:

The Democratic Party gets a political advantage by looking like a repository of hope. But would gay people continue to favor Democrats if the Democrats actually followed through and satisfied those hopes? There’d be some gratefulness, but — unless Republicans succumb to the temptation to say mean things — wouldn’t gay people melt into the general population and, from that point on, vote based on what they thought about economic policies, national defense, environmental issues and so forth? Achieving equality would liberate gay people in may ways, but one of those ways would be that they could vote for Republicans if they agreed with them about issues other than gay rights issues.

She’s onto something.  Just read the whole thing.  And as usual, the comments, if you have a moment, are worth your while.

Wise though this blogress diva may be, she leaves out two things (1) the extreme partisanship of many gay activists and leaders who insist that adopting left-wing politics is part and parcel of the coming out experience (lest you remian a “self-hating” homosexual) and (2) the amorphous nature of the idea of “achieving equality” (what does that mean?).

Despite the numerous bills the California legislature has passed at the behest of “Equality California,” that gay auxiliary of the California Democratic Party keeps lobbying for more laws, either mandating more state spending or encroaching ever more on the liberties of individuals and private (and public) associations.

Better than focus on this amorphous notion of equality which seems to require an ever-expanding state, let’s instead focus on protecting our liberty — or in the case of America today, rescuing that liberty from those who seek to take it away in order to further “social justice” (another amorphous concept).

In past years, when I’ve put together the ballot for the most coveted crown tiara in the blogosphere, that which will soon decorate the head of the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, I crafted a list of several of the blogresses who fit the description of a conservative blogress diva, a strong and confident blogress who commands the respect of (gay) conservative men.

This year, given my schedule, I neglected to put together an initial list, so will rely instead on our readers to supply the nominations.

So far, the potential nominees are (in no particular order):

• Fausta
• Pam Meister
• Jill of Pundit & Pundette (also at Potluck)
• No Sheeples Here
• Neo-neocon
• Robin of Berkeley
• Clarice Feldman (of American Thinker)
• Elizabeth Scalia (AKA The Anchoress)
• Ann Althouse
• Sister Toldjah
• Dr. Helen (AKA the Instawife)
• Michelle Malkin
• Tammy Bruce
• Cassy Fiano
• Mary Katherine Ham
• Melissa Clouthier

There were several other nominees, all of whom met the criteria for diva, but may not meet the criterion for blogress, so I will consult with the committee about whether or not they are eligible for nomination.

All nominations must be submitted and seconded by this Sunday, December 20.

You can indicate your choices in the comments below or in an e-mail to me.

Now that I have successfully defended my dissertation on a strong confident goddess who commands the respect of men, it’s time once again to consider those conservative blogresses who embody the qualities of the owl-eyed Olympian.  As you know, we here at GayPatriot define a diva as a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.

And it’s time again to consider which blogress merits the much coveted honor of Grande Conservative Blogress Diva. To be nominated, a blogress need not be conservative, but merely command the respect of conservative men.  

If competition is again fierce this year, the Grande Diva will be joined in her court by Regents (as in years past).

Submit your nominations either via the comments section below or in an e-mail to me. Over the weekend, Bruce and I will consider the nominees and prepare a ballot.

Let the cat fight competition begin!

What is it about certain members of the chattering classes on our nation’s coasts that whenever conservatives do well at the ballot box, their success must be attributed to something other than their ideas?

Ann Althouse, an Obama voter who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin, comments on something on something a fellow UW professor said.  In Bill Lueders’s Isthmus article subtitled ”The Triumph of Stupidity“, he asks “political science professor Charles Franklin how people could vote the way they did, and when Franklin answers ‘They’re pretty damn stupid,’ he says, ‘Thank you, professor… That’s the answer I was looking for’“:

Frankly, it’s an answer embraced by many people I know. One of my Isthmus colleagues sent me a study showing that Dane County, which bucked the trends on Election Day, is by far the most educated county in the state. “When conservatives cut support for education,” she mused, “they do so to keep people dumb and their own interests in power.”

This prompts this blogress diva to reply:

Welcome to my world: Dane County, Wisconsin, home of people who tell themselves they are the smart people and those who disagree with them must certainly be dumb. They don’t go through the exercise of putting themselves in the place of someone who thinks differently from the way they do . . . . If you short circuit that process and go right to the assumption that people who don’t agree with you are stupid, how do you maintain the belief that you are, in fact, intelligent, informed, and well-meaning?

Read the whole thing.  It is a puzzling thing how so many people who style themselves to be so superior and smart simply assume their ideological adversaries are stupid.

A reader alerted me this morning to a post by original Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Sondra K on an ignorant remark by an unhappy Congressman from the home state of Daniel Webster.  Seems the mean-spirited man from Massachusetts is so used to a fawning press that he just assumes the media will take his remarks at face value.

Miss K reports:

Rep. Barney Frank on government regulations: “The general fear that the banking members, that we’re going to over regulate on behalf of consumers is a fantasy unrelated to any human experience. The federal government has never done that.”

Ol’ Barney got it backwards.

The real fantasy is not in the minds of conservatives (and other critics & skeptics of big government) who provide detailed evidence of government regulatory schemes run amok with individual anecdotes and society-wide statistics, but in the minds of liberals like Barney who believe that their big-government schemes will work because they will work because they were conceived by really intelligent and very well-meaning individuals.

I mean, Barney’s been pushing a federal overhaul of health care for years now with no evidence that it will reduce costs or improve the quality of care.  This self-important Democrat can relate no examples from human experience of government-run health care which does all the things its advocates promised.  Indeed, the examples show quite the opposite.  But that hasn’t stopped Barney and his cronies from pushing their schemes.

Just look at the studies that have come out after Obamacare has passed.  It won’t contain costs.  Just this month, for example, we learned that White House says 51 percent of company health plans won’t meet Obamacare guidelines.

Just more evidence to support more theory that when Barney Frank talks, there’s some serious projection going on.

Among the many topics touched upon last night in the most marvelous Boston dinner (great food and amazing conversation), we discussed Sarah Palin.  We all admired the former Alaska Governor (though to varying degrees), but also agreed that she’s not positioning herself well for the White House.

That said, another woman we GayPatriots all admire, the magnificent and munificent (with her wisdom) Tammy Bruce has interviewed that accomplished woman.  And if two such talented women appear together in the same podcast, it surely merits your attention.

Ever since I have begun intense work on my dissertation, I have not had the time to check all the blogs I normally do, so I try to first scan those sites, e.g., Memeorandum, Instapundit, the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential, Yahoo! and AOL’s main page, which are a ready source of information and opinion. To that mix, I usually add Michelle Malkin, not merely for her Buzzworthy Sidebar, but also because I know I can rely on that blogress to check her facts.

When a number of conservative bloggers (including some at this site) were quick to jump on an alleged hate crime committed against a Pennsylvania woman volunteering for the McCain campaign in 2008, Michelle threw cold water on our rush to judgment, contending that the “story smells awfully weird“. She was right to be skeptical as the story proved, just as that blogress had suspected, to be a hoax.

When some blogs reported that when “Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign fundraising chief, Allee Bautsch, and her boyfriend in the French Quarter of New Orleans” were assaulted in New Orleans because they were wearing Palin pins, Malkin offered a “cautionary note“.  She was right to express caution, as we learned soon after the story surfaced that “Bautsch and her boyfriend were NOT wearing Palin pins.”

While the two people were assaulted, the “the detail about the Palin buttons,” was as Allahpundit points out, “simply wrong“.

I don’t always agree with Michelle Malkin and can find her rhetoric a bit overheated at times, but her blog remains an excellent source of information and her commitment to fact-checking a textbook example in how to blog.  And in this busy time for me, combined with the other sources listed above, she helps us learn what’s going on in the world while offering a unique conservative perspective, with clever visuals and witty asides.

If you want to know why Jennifer Rubin is one of my favorite blogresses, just read this piece she posted yesterday on Obama, The Endless Campaign.

UPDATE:  Okay, I probably should say why the piece struck me as being so insightful.  Remember how the Democrat campaigned as being a new kind of post-partisan president?  And then just look at how he’s governed, constantly attacking Republicans, regularly blaming his predecessor for the mess he inherited as if someone forced the job on him–and he hadn’t spent two years campaigning for it.

And we gotta admit, he ran a pretty good campaign and generally came across well on the campaign trail.  So, maybe that’s why he keeps at it, keeps campaigning, that is.  As Rubin writes (and this the essence of her spot-on post):

Obama and his grouchy adviser David Axelrod complain bitterly of the nonstop campaign, the partisanship of Washington, and the nonstop news cycle. But they most obviously are perpetuators of all three, and rely on campaign tactics (attack, attack, attack) in lieu of other skills — reasoned persuasion, real compromise, and legislative craftsmanship. They do it endlessly, campaign that is, because this is what they know and this is what they were good at. That it’s ill-suited to the task at hand and ultimately has diminished the president’s standing seem not to matter. Again and again Obama returns to the stump. What else is he to do? He’s proved unable to convince Blue Dogs of the merits of his bill.

Barack Obama seems obsessed with his opponents because he’s better at running against something than he is at running anything.

Last week, I so liked a piece that Conservative Blogress Diva Regent Neo-neocon posted on Pajamas I printed it out.  Just read it again.  She really got at a phenomenon afflicting the chattering classes, often described as Palin Derangement Syndrome, but sometimes known by its more common name, “Palin-hatred”.

Last week, many of the former Alaska Governor’s detractors, rushed to judge her, smearing her speech, attacking a bracelet she wore and attempting the ancient art of palmistry on her exposed palm.  Neo-neocon found this rush to judgment par for the course when it comes to this charismatic conservative woman:

This rush to judgment is not the exception but rather the rule when criticizing Sarah. Palin-hatred is as old — and as persistent — as her presence on the national scene (that’s “hatred,” as distinguished from mere disagreement on issues). There have been countless explanations for it. If anything, the phenomenon is over-determined, representing a toxic brew of class warfare, misogyny, envy (much of this coming from women), and elitism.

One of the many things that so infuriates Palin-haters is that she has not adopted the proper veneer of bland sameness that most people in public life affect, a smoothness that often serves to even out idiosyncrasies of accent and regionalism. Ms. Palin refuses to do this. She sports not only a bracelet that marks her as the proud mother of a son who has been in the military, but an accent that marks her as from the far north and simultaneously as “country.”

Many people read the latter as “uneducated,” and therefore “stupid.” The assumption is that Palin doesn’t change these things — she continues to drop her “g’s” at the end of “ing” words, for example — because she cannot do so, rather than because she chooses not to do so. But that assumption may be as incorrect as so many of the other assumptions about Palin.

Those many false assumptions. Guess it’s that her detractors have a hard time understanding her appeal because, well, she’s just not the type of woman who’s supposed to succeed.  She’s conservative, she loves her husband (who happens to be hot), she has a passel of children, she doesn’t read Derrida (and thankfully, probably doesn’t know who he is).

Just read the whole thing, this diva (Neo-neocon) is onto something.

Wish that I had more time to blog right now, been trying to follow the news in Iran (Michael Ledeen is always a good source) while taking care of a lot of odds and ends at home in anticipation of my out-of-town guests and a busy 48 hours playing uncle. to an “adoptive” niece.

Will try to get a few short posts up when I take a break from those odds and ends and my dissertation research/writing, but do want to draw your attention to Little Miss Attila’s thoughtful post on blogging guidelines (via Instapundit). Do like what she says about hate comments:

I allow misogyny in my comments section, because it is generally directed at me, and I feel it shows the true colors of the woman-hating commenters. Any anti-male, anti-Asian, anti-gay, anti-tranny, anti-black, anti-American Indian, and anti-Jewish comments, though (or ones that look like they might be indicative of biases in that direction) generally get a warning, and a reminder that repeated offenses are subject to redaction, and banning.

I tend to err on the side of inclusion of such remarks for the very reason Miss Attila identifies:  ”it shows the true colors” of those making such nasty statements.  And isn’t sunlight the best disinfectant?

Still, maybe there are occasions when we should ban.  Read the whole thing.  She has a lot to say–and not just about comments.  Her post is well worth your time.

Althouse nails it:

I don’t think Americans really like to see aggressive economic experiments that displace the private sector. . . . It’s a crazy concoction that no one understands.

Via:  Instapundit.