Caught this on the Facebook page of a friend of a friend (and a friend of Bruce):

So says Maggie Gallagher:

Methinks it was a typo. Or a Freudian Slip. Still it’s amusing.

As diligent readers of this blog know, I have changed my opinion of Ann Coulter in recent years.  I used to think that she was a right-wing bomb thrower, saying outrageous things merely to get a name for herself.  But, when I met her, I put her “outrageousness” into context.

What Ann does, I wrote last April, “is just throw the left’s broadsides on conservatives back at them, returning with a playful smile what lefties send out with a self-righteous scowl.  She mocks in good fun and to make a point.”  Read the whole post for an insight into my shifting views of this conservative diva.

In short, I began to appreciate this particular diva by putting her comments into a cultural context.  Today, Mickey Kaus also takes a broader view of this conservative, finding “More evidence for [his] contention that Ann Coulter is really quite sensible if you don’t provoke her with liberal BS.: Here is a passage from her recent column on taxes and spending:”

As Reagan explains a little farther in his autobiography: He did accept tax hikes “in return for [the Democrats'] agreement to cut spending by $280 billion,” but, Reagan continues, “the Democrats reneged on their pledge and we never got those cuts.” Maybe that’s why Republicans won’t agree to raise taxes in exchange for Democratic promises to cut spending.

For Americans who are unaware of the Democrats’ history of repeatedly reneging on their promises to cut spending in return for tax hikes, the Republicans’ opposition to tax increases does seem crazy. That’s why Republicans need to remind them. [E.A]

Read the whole thing.  H/t Instapundit.

Saw this on Jimmy LaSalvia’s Facebook page. We’ve all met guys like this short’s protagonist.

A reader alerted me to the latest episode of South Park which takes on #OWS, linking this post where Christian Toto offers a summary of the episode, including this line from Cartman, “Don’t you get it, Mom? People voted for Obama, and now that everything sucks they have to blame me!”

Shouldn’t these folks be #Occupying the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

NB:  Oops, inadvertently published this piece before I was done writing it, so delayed the publication as I was editing.

Just caught this on a friend’s Facebook page:

I do not like this Uncle Sam, I do not like his health care scam. I do not like these dirty crooks, or how they lie and cook the books. I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals. I do not like ex-speaker Nan, I do not like this ‘YES WE CAN’..I do not like this spending spree, I’m smart, I know that nothing’s free. I do not like their smug replies, when I complain about their lies. I do not like this kind of hope. I do not like it. Nope, nope, nope!

To which I offered this rejoinder:

Did you write this on your own? Or did you post it as a loan? It is cute and wise and smart and short; about a plan we must abort. The government has grown too big, I say, in this and that and every way. We must reduce its size, my friend, or this great debt will never end!

When I was challenged about job creation, I then offered this:

And there are fewer jobs, I say, because the government keeps getting in the way. They increase the cost to hire and grow, the permit process is way too slow. Let’s trust the market, not the state; more spending fails at any rate. People know best how to run lives; that’s how new jobs come and our economy thrives.

FROM THE COMMENTS: Our reader Kurt helped track down the source of the first block quote above:

I found a version of it from March 2010 at this link. That seems to be the oldest one so far, as the others I found came from August or September of last year. That one also credits it as coming from facebook. The headers for this version date it to July 2009. Narrowing Google searches by date produced a number of postings from July and August 2009 on MySpace. I would guess it was probably first sent around via e-mail and posted on facebook around June 2009.

There are many tributes that one can offer the late great Lucille Ball, but the greatest is perhaps the simplest:  she made makes us laugh.

She may have geared her humor to audiences in the 1950s, but when we watch the reruns, even though our mores have changed, her antics still delight and amuse us.  We still laugh at Lucy.  As Marlo Thomas put it:

And we loved her for the most basic of reasons: We trusted her. We knew if we showed up on Monday nights, she’d pay us back in laughs.

Whether she was plucking chocolates off a conveyor belt and stuffing them in her mouth, or vigorously stomping in a vat of grapes, or lighting a putty nose on fire –while it was attached to her face — Lucy’s mission was always the same: to see the laugh all the way through. She was like an Olympic gymnast, who practices tirelessly, executes to perfection and always lands on her feet.

As Roger Rabbit put it, “A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it’s the only weapon we have.”  Indeed.  How many people found a dark day brightened by a half-hour of Lucy’s humor?  (Or have he antics make a good day even better?)  How many times have we turned to Lucy (or other funny folk) as a respite from the struggles of a human life?

And this woman pioneered a new means to bring laughter to millions of homes.  She helped define the modern sit-com.  In developing her unique brand of physical comedy, she may have drawn on vaudeville schtick, but she made it made it work for (what was then) a new medium.  As she was influenced by the silent start Harold Lloyd, countless comedians (and comediennes) have been influenced by her.

The woman whom we remember for making us laugh had not set out to be a comedienne, but to be a Broadway star.  Only in her late 30s, after suffering many setbacks did she realize that that was her purpose in life — to make people life — and she pursued it with passion, determination, imagination and effort.  May we all such realizations and pursue them as did Lucille Ball.

RELATED: 15 Things You Never Knew About TV’s Funniest Lady

Because of the craziness of this past week, a visiting nephew and a visiting father, I somehow got my dates messed up.  I had planned on celebrating this centennial of Lucille Ball’s birthday today, Sunday, August 6, only looking up at my calendar yesterday afternoon to realize that it was indeed, Saturday, August 6 so Sunday would be the 100th anniversary of Lucy’s birth plus one day.

In honor of that great lady, I tracked down a few videos honoring her.  Here, the Gipper offers a tribute to the woman who made millions laugh.

Note how at about 0:46 into the video when Mike Wallace asks Ronald Reagan what made Lucy so special, the great man replied, “I don’t know that I can answer that.  You just accepted it and reveled in it, but you didn’t try to get down and analyze what she could do.  But, it just was peculiarly hers and her way.  I don’t know of anyone you could compare her to.”

What a great way to appreciate a great artist.  You don’t analyze how they do it; you just delight in how well they do it, that they make us laugh or cry — or just plain feel more alive and better connected to the universe and those around us.

Reader Peter Hughes alerted me to Ann Coulter’s latest column, one of the simultaneously funniest and most insightful commentaries on current events I’ve read all year.  Currently finishing her next book and is thus

. . . only able to catch bits and pieces of the news this month, but, based on what I’ve heard from the mainstream media, I’m pretty sure the conservative movement is now being led either by Jared Loughner or GOProud’s president, Chris Barron.

Pretty  much sums up their coverage of the first six weeks of this year.   A deranged Tea Party member shot up a rally featuring a Democratic Congresswoman while CPAC is all about GOProud.  Then, she joins Sarah Palin, albeit in a much different tone, in welcoming gay conservatives into the movement:

No, we don’t generally care for identity politics of any sort, much less hearing about people’s sex lives, even Nino Scalia’s. (And judging by the number of children he has, it’s pretty active.) Conservatives believe in individual rights, low tax rates, fighting terrorism and punishing criminals — so do gays! They also happen to believe Judy Garland was the most underappreciated and misunderstood person in the history of show business. I don’t think most gays care about gay marriage; they like going to the gay marriage meeting because it’s a good way to meet other gays.

Read the whole thing.

But, alas it’s true.   Leslie Nielsen, who began his career as a serious dramatic actor, but it is best known for his humorous work in such Zucker Brothers classics as Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies where he played “the bumbling detective” Lt Frank Drebbin, “died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. . . from complications from pneumonia.” He was 84.

What better tribute can I offer to a man who brought much laughter than a taste of his work:

As we enter the holiday season, what better way to remember this man than to share the gift of laughter. His movies stand the test of time — and make great gifts.

So writes Michelle Malkin in describing the floral arrangement Sharron Angle sent Joy Behar.  You see the day the TV talker delivered a mean-spirited rant against the Nevada Republican, the candidate had a “banner day fundraising” raking it $137,000.

As you my recall,

Behar repeatedly called Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle a “bitch” on the air yesterday, and told her to “go to hell,” for the release of a political advertisement the ladies of The View saw as racially charged.

“You know what I’d like to see her do? I’d like to see her do this ad in the south Bronx. Come here, bitch! Come to New York and do it,” Behar said.

Michelle alerts us to Elizabeth Crum’s post on NRO Battle ’10:

In response to Joy Behar’s vicious remarks on The View, the Angle campaign sent a lovely flower arrangement with a note enclosed.

“Joy, Raised $150,000 online yesterday. Thanks for your help. Sincerely, Sharron Angle”

There was a brief moment when I really did think that Obama might upend American politics, helping forge a permanent Democratic majority.  I was largely impressed with the way he conducted his transition and thought that he would tack to the center and so marginalize a (then-)dispirited Republican base.

But, when he showed no sign of scaling back the “stimulus” cooked up in the back rooms of Democratic congressional offices, I began to sense that he might be more of a transitional than a transformational figure, foisting (far) left-of-center policies on a center-right nation. Considering that Democrats are, by and large, not campaigning on the legislative initiatives of the past two years, it seems they now realize how out-of-step his agenda is with the mood of the nation — yesterday, Glenn Reynolds linked a Rasmussen poll finding that “Only 25% Prefer a Government With More Services, Higher Taxes“.

No wonder Democratic attacks are becoming increasingly personal.  It’s the only tactic that might work in the current climate. Indeed, Ed Morrissey poins out, citing a Howard Kurtz piece in the Daily Beast, “those highly personal attacks are more the norm than the exception“.

Maybe it’s not just a campaign tactic, maybe as P.J. O’Rourke opines, “They hate our guts“:

They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.

So, that’s why they pushed an unpopular agenda.  They don’t love us so much as they love power.  Read the whole thing.

Walking to Matthew Berry’s debate tonight, I passed a car sporting these bumper stickers in deepest blue Arlington.

Something tells me that one would have earned a large grin from my co-blogger.

So, what did y’all think?  I missed it.  Had made enough progress in my dissertation that I treated myself to a fun movie about training your dragon or something.  A lot of fun.  Good score.  Fun animation.

Missed Betty White on Saturday Night Live.  So, a reader suggested a do an open thread.  As per his suggestion, here it is.

As Dan blogged yesterday, National Security Advisor General James Jones over the weekend started his remarks to the Washington Institute For Near East Policy with a joke I heard when I was in grade school.*

Quite the furor from all sides. Nobody seems to be giving the guy a pass here. As usual, I find I’m the only one who seems to feel the way I do. Which is:

Two things:
First: Um, it was a joke. Without getting into a long discussion of the use of hyperbole and stereotype in humor, I’ll leave it at: Some stuff’s funny, some stuff’s not. I don’t think Jones did a great job with his delivery (took way too long), and perhaps any joke with racial or cultural overtones would be inappropriate if you’re representing your boss. But it was a joke. Have we grown so calous as a Nation to the actual things going on around us that it’s peoples’ choice of humor that drives us so mad with indignation? Isn’t that (granted, on a much, much smaller scale) what we’re fighting against?

Second: I have much more problem with this Administration’s anti-Israel positions than the jokes his NSA tells. Here’s a guy who brow-beats Israel for building apartments in Jerusalem. (Um, is there any part of the “peace process” that takes that off the table?) Here’s a guy who is cuddling up with Syria. Here’s a guy who seems, shall we say, cavalier about Iranian nukes. Here’s a guy who treats their head of state like some sort of pariah. Looking for some sort of “undertone” or “hidden anti-Semitic agenda” in a silly joke is along the lines of the old sledge-hammer analogy. Obama’s anti-Israel agenda is pretty clear to see.

What I care about is what he’s doing. There’s enough there to not spend my energy getting too wound up about a joke.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

*(Full disclosure, when I was a kid, I knew an old Jewish guy. He loved his Jewish jokes, thus early on I was exposed to the self-depricating humor one appreciates when he’s a wise old guy. Methinks this has a lot to do, also, with my historic lack of sensitivity to most charges of “racism” based only on things someone says, rather than his actions. Perhaps having been raised out West and among tolerant people, I developed my aw, get over it reaction to perceived slights.)

UPDATE (from Dan): Nick, it’s one thing for a Jew to tell a self-deprecating joke. It’s quite another for a man with a questionable record on Israel telling the joke. Not just that, given the Administration’s anti-Israel positions, it showed a terrible absence of judgment. There’s no problem with telling a joke. That’s not the issue here. The issue is the context which you get at with your second point.

There is an emerging tension between this Administration and its Jewish supporters as per its Israel policies. (See e.g., this Jewish Obama supporter‘s lament.) And this joke exacerbated the tensions while playing into the worst stereotypes of Jews.

Okay, so let me get this straight:

The ever-so nuanced and most brilliant leader in a generation, President Obama, comes out after the passage of Obamacare and declares that:

I’m not exaggerating…Leaders of the Republican Party … called the passage of [The Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010] “Armageddon.”…

So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling or some cracks opening up in the earth. Turned out it was a nice day. Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall.

(my emphasis)

Now there’s a guy who knows the power of words. Or something. We’re to believe the leader of the Free World and what they’d have us believe is the most eloquent speaker of our generation is so dense he can’t tell a rhetorical flourish when he hears one? He can’t discern methaphorical language? Perhaps it’s a certain font on the TelePrompter, and if he’s not reading it, he doesn’t recognize it.

Anyway, comes now the toadies in the left to once again jump on an actual professional speaker, Rush Limbaugh.

In a mockery of the mockery, Rush has this to say:

You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law Obama ran around all over the country saying, ‘Hey, you know, I’m looking around. The earth hadn’t opened up. There’s no Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping.’ I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied. This volcano in Iceland has grounded more airplanes — airspace has more affected — than even after 9/11 because of this plume…Earth has opened up. I don’t know whether it’s a rebirth or Armageddon. Hopefully it’s a rebirth.

How does the Left play this? deadpan serious and completely without irony.

It’s not the president to them who looks like the jackass by completely missing the point and condescendingly belittling those who’d rather not have Kathleen Sebelius determine thier health care needs. It’s Rush Limbaugh for pointing it out.

Coming next? Criticism for Limbaugh saying “Obama ran around all over the country”. Technically, he flew on Air Force One. Sheesh, doesn’t this guy do any fact-checking before he shoots his mouth off?

Score another one for the death of Poetry.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

UPDATE (from Dan, trying to be funny):  But, doesn’t Obama realize that the bill doesn’t kick in until 2014.  Guess he wanted to give us time to prepare for Armageddon.

Unlike Bruce, I have only recently become a fan of Ann Coulter.

I knew her when we were both in law school, she at Michigan, I at U-VA and while impressed with her intellect, I was irritated by her schtick, playing the leggy blond right-winger who said outrageous things. She used her looks as did Helen, daughter of Tyndarus (later of Troy), Cleopatra and Evita, to advance her career, especially as they (those looks) contrasted with the pock-marked, pot-bellied stereotypical outspoken conservative who also said outlandish things.

In an ideal world, her commentary would be beyond the pale.  She says some things which are deliberately provocative, but her commentary is no less provocative than that which passes for serious liberal thought on the editorial pages of our nation’s major dailies and on cable TV.

We are, however, not living in an ideal world.  We live in a world, at evidenced by the attacks on the Tea Party when some in the media report as news inaccurate stories about racist conservative activists, activists who exist only in the heads of Democratic Congressmen and their various and sundry echo chambers.

I had an insight about Ann about the time last year I heard her speak at David Horowitz’s birthday celebration.  (I went not so much to hear her speak, but to honor David, a man I have long respected.)  I realized that in the world as it is — and not as we’d like it to be — she is an ideal conservative spokesman (no spokesperchild she).

What Ann does is just throw the left’s broadsides on conservatives back at them, returning with a playful smile what lefties send out with a self-righteous scowl.  She mocks in good fun and to make a point.

I thought of Ann today when Byron York was looking into the left hyperventilating over Rush Limbaugh responding to the president’s attack on him, calling his Administration a regime:  ”By using the word ‘regime,’ Limbaugh was doing something he does all the time: throwing the language of the opposition back in their faces.”

In short, Coulter’s “schtick” is a lot like Limbaugh’s.

Ann, I apologize for not getting you before.  I was holding our side to a higher standard.  Sometimes in the current media atmosphere, you have to respond in kind to get heard.  And to make a point.

Last week, I received a dewy-eyed e-mail from Kate Kendell, Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, all misty because Congress had just passed health care reform.  You see, when it comes to items on the Democratic agenda, they just have to be good for gay people, you see, because, well, they’re on the Democratic agenda and the Democrats are good people.

And anyway, Republicans opposed it and those nasty obstructionists are meanies!

The last time Miss Kendell got all misty-eyed was last September 11, when ignoring the anti-gay animosity of Islamicists, you know, those folks who had orchestrated the attacks eight years previously on that very day, she insisted that LGBT people, need health care reform “as much as anyone, and because [Obama's] entire national agenda of greater inclusion, security, and humanity for all of us hangs in the balance.”  And anyway, those who oppose it are Republicans who are meanies who hate gay people.

Yep, she devoted her 9/11 letter to attacking and vilifying conservatives for opposing Obama’s agenda.  (Wonder if Barney’s gonna ask Democrats to “differentiate themselves” from Miss Kendell.  If not, we can deem her a spokesperchild* for his party.)   You see, for her (and folks like her toiling for the national gay organizations), the Obama agenda is the gay agenda because she so closely ties her politics to left-wing ideology and Democratic partisanship.

Doesn’t bother her Obama’s health care reforms will likely make it easier for government bureaucrats to gain access to our medical records.  It doesn’t matter “that a provision giving” same-sex partners “the same tax exclusion” as different-sex “spouses on the value of employer-provided health benefits was also removed.”  What does does matter to her that this was a big bill high on the agenda of a Democratic Administration.

As Charles Winecoff put it in his most humorous must-read post on folks like Miss Kendell, ever faithful to “their religion (D-ism)”:  ”Domestic fairies enjoyed many fetishes, but none was so great as their fetish for the letter ‘D.’”  It’s all about that “D” and because of that (D) after Obama’s name, any provision he supports must needs be most excellent.

* (more…)

Just received a link to this from a reader:

H/T – jaxy89 on Twitter

Priceless!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)