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, 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.

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.

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.

PAMELA GELLER AT ATLAS SHRUGS!

Congrats to Pam and her supporters (it was a landslide).  And thanks as well to the other diva contestants.  They are all awesome and I voted for a few of them!

I hereby close this year’s contest and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan): And once again neoneocon will join Pamela in her court as Conservative Blogress Diva Regent, also known as the Endora for that staunch Republican, Agnes Moorehead. Now that Pamela with her victory has won the coveted crown, known as the Ethel in honor of that great Republican Ethel Merman, with all rights honors and privileges pertaining thereto, neoneo will assist her in her duties, filling in whenever the Grande Diva is incapacitated or otherwise unable to fulfill the awesome responsibilities of this job.

And recall we here at GayPatriot define a diva as “a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.” A conservative blogress diva need not be conservative. All she must do command the respect (or have otherwise earned the admiration) of gay conservatives.

And please note that while there are many conservative blogress divas, including a good number not on this ballot, only one woman can become the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

• Cynthia Yockey
• Neoneocon
• Anchoress
• Michelle Malkin
• Ann Althouse
• Jennifer Rubin (Commentary Contentions)
• Fausta
• Pamela (Atlas Shrugs)
• Tammy Bruce

To be sure, by keep the contest at a manageable number, we could not include each and every blogress worthy of consideration.

I expect to get a poll up until sometime tonight, at which time the balloting will officially begin.

Jennifer Rubin

With nominations now complete, Bruce and I are reviewing the submissions and their seconds to determine which lucky blogresses get to compete for the coveted crown.

One of the great things about this competition is that it helps us learn about all the talented conservative, libertarian as well as centrist and iconoclastic liberal women who are blogging.  And even each of the various conservatives on the list offers a unique point of view, from mainstream Reagan conservatives who warmly embrace their gay and lesbian peers to social conservatives who begrudgingly tolerate us.

Some women who didn’t make the list, but whose names came to mind in the course of the competition, include National Review’s Lisa Schiffren, Dr. Melissa Clouthier*, Cathy Young, Rachel Abrams at the Weekly Standard, and Lorie Byrd.  There are a lot of smart woman out there, expressing their opinions (nearly) every day and not subscribing to left-wing feminist claptrap.  As our reader Lori G wrote, “So many conservative lovelies“.  Indeed.

As we review the submissions, obviously we will not be able to acknowledge all this incredible talent (with a nomination).   If we did that, the list would be incredible unwieldy.  But, by speaking her mind and challenging the conventional wisdom of how a smart woman should think, each of these “lovelies” is truly a diva.  But, only one can become the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

—–

*Her latest, Passing Obamacare Will Hurt Democrats, Not Passing Obamacare Will Hurt Democrats, is particularly insightful, the title alone spot on.

libertarian. And others, while more centrist, distinguish themselves by their iconoclasm and the manner in which they take on the silliness of certain leftists — and conservative pretenders, i.e., those who, in the words of one of our [past and possibly future] nominees, “drive . . . liberals nuts.”

This year, our readers have already submitted the names of blogress divas new to the contest, including, we believe, only the second lesbian ever nominated, Cynthia Yockey, aka a Conservative Lesbian.   Will she perhaps replace that other dyke diva Tammy Bruce by capturing this year’s Endora and reigning a Conservative Blogress Diva Regent or will she join Sondra K and Pamela Geller as only the third woman to become the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva?

Other names drawn to my attention this year include Cassandra of Villainous Company, Nic Deb, Megan McArdle, Phyllis Chesler and Karin Quade (of anti-anti-Americanism.com).

Also in contention are reigning divas Pamela Geller, Tammy Bruce and neoneocon as well as Amy Alkon, The Anchoress, Ann Althouse, Little Miss Attila, Dymphna of Gates of Vienna, immediate past Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Sondra K of Knowledge is Power, Mary Katharine Ham of The Weekly Standard, Rachel Lucas, Michelle Malkin, Camille Paglia, Virginia Postrel of The Dynamist, Jennifer Rubin of Commentary’s Contentions, Sister Toldjah, Debbie Schlussel, and Fausta Wertz.

Please submit your nominations (or seconds) in the comments section below or via e-mail.   Bruce and I will review the submissions (and the seconds) and choose this year’s roster, posting a poll as soon as this coming Friday with balloting continuing for at least a week.

So, if you want your favorite diva to appear on the ballot, make sure to second her nomination below.

And this past year, I have discovered many blogresses meriting the honor of being a blogress diva that I will wait and see the names our readers submit before submitting my list (as we have in years past).

I will, however, kick off the context by placing in nomination the name of an Obama supporter who has long commanded my respect:  Camille Paglia.  As we receive submissions and seconds, Bruce and I will determine which divas compete for the crown.  We expect to honor not only a Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, her prize hereinafter to be known as the “Ethel” in honor of that Republican most beloved by gay men–Ethel Merman.

She will be helped by at least one Conservative Blogress Regent, a title now held by Tammy Bruce and neoneocon and known as the Endora (or Agnes) in honor of the Lavender Lady herself, that “staunch” conservative, Agnes Moorhead.  This year, we may also be establishing the Lucy Award in honor of another star of the small screen and famous friend of Ron, that lifelong Republican Lucille Ball.

We will accept nominations until midnight Wednesday, December 16.  Shortly thereafter, we will alert the nominees and announce the beginning of the cat fight balloting.

She’ll not only take them on if she doesn’t agree with them, but also if she doesn’t like the way they’re playing the game.  She doesn’t let partisan labels or political worldview prevent her from calling things as she sees them.  She may love Barack Obama, but she’ll lambaste her beloved Democrat when she believes he’s governing badly–or surrounding him with tone-deaf advisers.  And she doesn’t soft-pedal such criticism, even of an ally.  Even it if means being labeled “C**tzilla.”

I have long been a fan of this gifted scholar and social critic, having met her in 1994 at a reading/book-signing organized by the D.C.. bookstore Chapters. Her book Sexual Personae has been an invaluable resource for my dissertation on the goddess Athena.  My readers–and almost never the liberal ones–regularly alert me to her columns.  In short, this Obama supporter has gained the respect of gay conservatives, thus, in my mind, at least, qualifying her for the coveted contest.

Recall that we have defined a diva as a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.  And of the Grande Conservative Blogress diva, I have written:

She need not be conservative herself . . . , but must by the the power of her prose, the eloquence of her expression and the intelligence of her ideas have earned the enmity of the angry left and so endeared herself to gay men like us who admire strong women who speak their minds, even at the expense of encomia from those in the entertainment industry and the MSM.

Being called C**tzilla suggests earning enmity from the angry left.

So, my friends, I put this question to you, in December, when we again began the process of selecting the most (cat) fought-over title in the blogosphere, should we consider Camille Paglia for Grande Conservative Blogress Diva?

For a slightly more nuanced view of Paglia, please make sure to read Endora-winning blogress (AKA Conservative Blogress Diva Regent) neeneocon’s take on the Obama-supporting diva.

*And Bush-critic.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama’s aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

. . . .

I just don’t get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.

. . . .

Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn’t conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it’s the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves.

Emphasis added.

In her post where she also skewers House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paglia offers little love for the GOP.  As with anything by Paglia just read the whole thing.

She gets at the essence of the opposition.  With the Administration handling this in a ham-handed, haphazard manner, people fear they are being left out of an overhaul of a sector of society with which they are, by and large, satisfied.  Not just that, this reform is coming from a man, who as presidential candidate promised a new era of transparency, but is relying on back room deals and lobbyist support to craft the health care reform bill.

Paglia is right (and wise) to note that no final bill exists.  If Obama wishes to be true to the platform on which he ran, he will request that Congress recess once the final bill has been drafted and posted on the internet.  He would ask each Representative and Senator to hold townhall meetings advertised at least two weeks in advance to all their constituents.  In short, they wouldn’t vote on final passage until they’ve discussed the bill with the people they were elected to serve.

Yes, this will take a bit of time, but it is a major industry overhaul with far-reaching consequences.

Maybe that’s why the unhappy Congressman is so mean-spirited.  He just doesn’t look good in a dress.

(H/t Attila the Honey (potential blogress diva?) via the People’s Cube.)

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Jana writes, “Too bad he beclowns himself in a far more humiliating manner every day.”

I have long been fascinated by the contempt certain left-wing bloggers hold for Ann Althouse.  As I noted in a previous post, she’s “kind of like the South Park of blogging. . ., directing her snark at pretty much anything she finds amusing” regardless of politician affiliation.  She’s basically an equal opportunity riffer.

You wouldn’t think she’d earn the ire of any particular partisans.

Indeed, given the enthusiasm of left-of-center bloggers had for Barack Obama in last fall’s campaign, you’d think they’d love Althouse.  Having backed Bush in 2004, she came out for Obama last year, voting for him in the Wisconsin primary, one of the most decisive contests of the Democratic campaign.  Her support for their man helped give him added credibility, an example of his appeal to moderate Bush voters.

Not just that, she’s had kind things to say for a number of conservatives, even offered occasional praise for Sarah Palin.  They could use her to show how broad-minded people, having seen the strengths on both sides, prefer Obama.

But, maybe they just couldn’t stand her because sometimes she refrained from riffing Republicans and denounced Democrats instead. Her occasional praise of Republicans really got under their skins.  Her support for Obama was not absolute.   She did not see him as a messiah, but merely the better of the two candidates (in each of two contests, for the Democratic nomination and later the White House.)  And she’s aware of the President’s imperfections, criticizing him from time to time.

I think that’s part of the reason those bloggers can’t stand her; she’s only a lukewarm supporter of Obama and not a rabid critic of his opponents.

I believe, however, the real reason the mere mention of her name whips those bloggers into paroxysms of anger and invective is that right-of-center bloggers love her even though we often disagree with her.

Glenn links her regularly as have many of the other leading conservative (and libertarian) blogs.  My readers, even some of the most conservative ones, love her.  Some alert me to her posts, with one Republican woman saying she checks Althouse as much as she checks this site.

I think it’s Althouse’s popularity among conservatives that really gets a lot of liberals.  They can’t fathom how such supposedly narrow-minded right-wingers could appreciate the work of a blogress who doesn’t share our political sentiments and often criticizes our party’s candidates.  Her popularity on the right shows that we welcome and appreciate those who don’t toe the conservative line, who hold different points of view than our own.

In short, her popularity upsets the left-wing narrative of an intolerant right.  So she must be badmouthed to prevent right-of-center bloggers from being seen as respectful of those with whom we sometimes disagree.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  ”Apostasy is worse than Heresy. That’s why they hate her so.”

And now, he sees a straight blogress’s upcoming marriage as an object of ridicule. Yesterday, he linked a left-wing blog mocking Ann Althouse’s impending nuptials to someone who comments to her blog. In so doing, he showed his confusion about what marriage is, something he once understood pretty well. After that diva called him on his “disrespectful” post, he fired back, ignoring her criticism and focusing on his own views, “I’m all in favor of the right of straight bloggers to marry their straight commenters. It’s a civil right.“

Is that all it is, Andrew, a civil right? Interesting that that’s how he would choose to address the controversy, reducing it to a right.

Althouse never one to mince words (hence her diva status) called Andrew on missing the point:

This isn’t about legal rights. This is about how individuals treat each other, and I want to know why you disrespected me. Explain why you linked to Pandagon’s scurrilous OMFG, which, as you know, means “Oh, my fucking God.” Is that the way you mean to speak to me? Is that the way you talk about God?

In Andrew’s eagerness to link a left-wing blogger to attack a more moderate one (who happened to have endorsed the same presidential candidate he did), he shows once again that he has long since left the conservative fold, even as he calls himself conservative.

What conservative would link a left-wing blogger to mock the impending nuptials of a centrist blogress?

The Massachusetts Democrat claims that Justice Scalia “makes it very clear that he’s angry, frankly, about the existence of gay people:”

If you read his opinion [in Lawrence v. Texas], he thinks it’s a good idea for two consenting adults who happen to be gay to be locked up because he is so disapproving of gay people.

Well that sage blogress, who actually read Lawrence informs the mean-spirited Decmorat that “you are either lying about having read it, lying about what Scalia wrote, or an embarrassingly incompetent reader.”  Actually quoting the actual words of Scalia’s actual dissent, Althouse finds the Associate Justice objecting to the majority opinion overturning Texas’s sodomy law as rooted in “plain old deference to the democratic process and a resistance to creative interpretation of constitutional text.”   His opinion is thus consistent with his constitutional jurisprudence.

Read the whole thing.  Maybe it’s Althouse’s direct manner which so offends those on the left.  And they, like Barney, are so easily offended.

If a Republican were as outspoken and mean-spirited as the Massachusetts Congressman and so regularly engaged in name-calling, he would be the target of regular media attacks.  Tom DeLay got in more trouble with the media for saying things far less offensive about his adversaries than Ol’ Barney has done.

Does this unhappy Congressman hide behind his sexuality, as if the marginalization he’s suffered somehow justifies his meanness?

On Saturday, I wanted to make sure to check her blog largely because she’s visiting my home town and posting pictures from the city Winston Churchill dubbed “the most beautiful city inland in the Union”.  She offered a photo of my favorite flavor of ice cream from the best ice cream place on the planet.  As well as images of the most delicious chili concoctions ever created by the mind of man.

She posed for a picture at the very statue where my grandmother gave me my very fist lesson on mythology in my favorite urban park in the nation.

Amidst all these happy images, she also alluded to her run-in with Ezra Klein, a blogger quite unhappy that this blogress diva doesn’t censor her comments and lets some pretty hateful ones stand.  As she explains:

Well, Ezra, I do not delete comments based on viewpoint. I believe in the marketplace of ideas, and to the extent that there are some anti-Semitic comments here, there are many more comments that strike back. Is it not better to have scurrilous ideas out in the sunlight where they can die?

Now you know what we call her a diva.  She doesn’t mince words and is unafraid of criticism and nut jobs.  (Memo to self: remember Ann’s words next time you find a hateful comment in the spam filter; expose it to sunlight so it can more readily be killed.)

Blogger William Jacobson wonders if there’s method to Klein’s madness:

This is how the left does it. When you can’t find racist/sexist/anti-Semitic/homophobic comments by a conservative, you impugn their reputation by finding some lunatic in a crowd (or in blog comments) who did make such a comment.

. . . .

Now Klein plays the “anti-Semite” card against Althouse by using anonymous blog comments against her. Who placed the anti-Semitic blog comments? Was it Klein himself acting under a pseudonym? I have no evidence of that, but how about if I ran a post titled “Did Ezra Klein post anti-Semitic comments to set up Ann Althouse?”

Klein, who is internet savvy, knew what his headline would do. Do a search for Ann Althouse on Google now, and you turn up blog posts concerning the anti-semitism. Forget her scholarship, teaching, popular blog. No, Klein has succeeded in making the discussion about Althouse about anti-semitism.

The thing I don’t get about this hatred of Althouse is that she is kind of like the South Park of blogging.  She’s witty, directing her snark at pretty much anything she finds amusing*.  Is is that leftists in the blogosphere today are so humorless so self-righteous that they can’t abide the least bit of mockery, criticism or a combination of both?

Or, maybe it’s since they don’t have George W. Bush to kick around any more, they’ve decided to start going after prominent blogresses?

Perhaps it’s something else. Maybe Klein has a case of ADS (Althouse Derangement Syndrome), a syndrome afflicting partisans who can’t understand how a blogress can gain a following without subscribing to any ideology.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse linked this post on her blog and in the comments, one of her readers (who happens to be a an old friend of mine) offered a pretty good assessment of why left-wing bloggers labels Althouse a conservative even though she doesn’t subscribe to any particular ideology:

Apparently, liberals define these terms rather the way the New Yorker magazine used to mock New Yorkers in their mapping of North America: whatever’s not us is alien territory. Thus, whoever doesn’t march in lockstep with liberal pieties, is “conservative” or, grudgingly, a “moderate conservative.”

I think that pretty much nails it.  Whoever doesn’t march in lockstep with them is by definition a conservative.

——-

*Regardless of political affiliation.

No sooner did Camille Paglia praise the president for looking good on Inauguration Day (his “relaxed, natural authority with military officers”) while faulting him for dropping the ball on crafting the “stimulus,” than Ann Althouse took her fellow blogress to task for her “purple piffle:”

Yet read for a few paragraphs and you’ll get hit in the face with the insipidity of: “But aside from the stimulus muddle, Obama has been off to a good start.”

. . . .

The President was able to look decent standing next to military personnel. This is the “good start”? She should blush deep red with embarrassment to have defined the standard of presidential achievement down so low.

Read the whole thing (both of ‘em).

(Tipping my hat to Glenn as he alerted me both to Ann’s post and to Camille’s before I had the chance to check their blogs on my own.)

Endora-award winning blogess Tammy Bruce doesn’t mince words when taking to task those Democrats who want to prosecute the former president for war crimes.

Talking about those still obsessed with the former president even though he’s gone, Tammy says, “these are individuals who are obsessed and paranoid about the [former] president. . . “

This seems to be the week when smart women don’t mince their words.

(H/t Gateway Pundit).