March 18, 2008

Watcher Countdown - Two! Just Around the Corner...

Yep, we're winding our way down. By the time you read this, we will already have voted on our last Watcher's Council vote. But we don't consider ourselves truly alumni until we finish the last three results posts... a tad late, but heck, you should be used to that by now.

In fact, the work involved in writing these posts is one of the reasons we're calling it a year after just a year (that didn't come out right, but you know what we meant.) It's not required to discuss each winning post and each post we voted for; all we need do to abide by the letter of the Council is list the winners and link to the results on the Watcher of Weasels' web site. (And, I think, link to the nominees; but I never noticed that requirement until a couple of weeks ago, and it's too late to teach the early worm a new trick.)

But the posts offered by the Council members and those others (the "Nouncil," or non-Council) they nominate are just too damned good to let slide by with a single sentence or a bare link. We feel compelled to discuss them, quote from them, betimes even argue with them. Hence these long, annoying Watcher's Council results posts... which, by the way, nobody has shown any sign of enjoying but we ourselves.

So without further ado -- or further mawkish self-pity -- we give you the winners, the also-rans... and the total losers who write Big Lizards!

Council

The winner is Laer at Cheat Seeking Missiles for this poli-sci piece on the upcoming presidential campaign:

• In A PC Nation, How Will The GOP Run?, by Cheat Seeking Missiles.

I love technical politics... the nuts and bolts of how one actually runs a political campaign, either at the micro level (how Whatchamacallem should run his campaign against Thingamajig) or the macro (how should the GOP run against the Democrats). I never studied any of this at university (I frittered my time away on math and creative writing), so I appreciate any help a blogger can give me by his blogpost.

In this case, Laer takes issue with folks like Jack Kemp, urging John McCain not to run a cautious campaign:

The fact of the matter is, the GOP effort cannot be about, as Politico said, protecting the GOP from charges of racism or sexism. Those charges will come no matter what, so while it's important to prep messaging in order to avoid or reduce charges of racism in the campaign ahead, it's more important to develop a strategy for responding to those inevitable charges.

But I do take a little issue, though I am only an egg, with Laer's prescription for what McCain should do:

Race-card playing race-baiters (or sex-card playing fem-baiters) cannot be allowed to enjoy the immunity that's been extended to Jesse Jackson, the Irreverent Sharpton, or the flock of feminists. Perpetrators of such baiting need to be shut down in language that appeals to GOP and independent voters; forget appeasing the Dems. Here's a first take on such a message:

"This is a defining moment for [race/women] in America, and we all must stand up to those who are playing the tired and empty [race/feminism] card, trying desperately to cling to an America that simply is no more. I am sick of people who want to shame America and embarrass it globally for the sake of their selfish power. I will not allow them to redirect this campaign to the past when I am looking to the future, and neither should you. Tell them you're done with the dirty politics of division."

To be clearer, I support the preamble -- don't let race-baiters get away with it -- but dispute the tactic advised. In fact, I would advist McCain to attack exactly as he would were Obama white or Clinton a man, and not make any big deal out of the first-ness of it all.

I think most people would be refreshed to hear a truly post-racial campaign of white vs. black. And if the race-baiters whine that McCain isn't giving Obama sufficient deference for being the first black presidential nominee of either major party... then McCain asks them to make up their minds: Does this campaign transcend race, or is it about nothing but Barack Obama's race? Let them simmer in their own juice.

Still, it's a great post; we voted it number two, but it's a perfectly reasonable overall winner.

Our number-one vote went to Wolf Howling -- which (as you'll see) appears to be a pattern:

1. Obama (with links) & McCain's Petard, by Wolf Howling;

Mr. (or Mrs.) Howling notes a very ironical Catch-22 that John McCain finds himself in, though there is an easy out. We already discussed this in one of our own posts, Chicago Rules; so no need to go into it here as well.

But you'll be hearing about Chicago Rules in our next post...

Nouncil

The winner here was Gila Weiss, who writes an open letter to a radical filmmaker whose movie equated the victim of a suicide bombing to the murderous bitch who killed her... and Weiss tears the filmmaker a new pineal gland:

• To Die in Jerusalem, Part II, by My Shrapnel.

Can't do any better than to quote the money graf:

You boldly proclaim your identification with Ayat. How much time have you spent trying to identify with Rachel? Where is Rachel in this story? Is she important because she was, because of the person she was…or because she was a particularly interesting victim of terror--a victim the same age as and with a striking resemblance to her murderer? This is how I see it: the only reason that you care about Rachel at all is because she makes the story of your darling, tormented suicide bomber that much more dramatic. She is a foil for the blade to play against. If she were blonde, if she were ten years older, if she were, say, the downright heroic security guard, she would not have mattered to you at all. She would have been just another sad, but rather dull, statistic.

This short, little missive is lethal.

We voted for a couple other brilliant pieces:

1. Validating AGW Skepticism, by The QandO Blog;
2. The Democrats' Collective Cognitive Catatonia, by Dr. Sanity.

The first presents several points that shake the foundations of anthropogenic globaloney a bit, and you already know we're obsessed about that subject! And in the second, Ma Sanity really puts the casual perfidy and narcissistic preening of the Democrats in the House under the microscope, anent their failure to enact (or even allow a vote on) a bill to restore and permanize the Protect America Act of 2007, which fixed some gaping holes in our intelligence gathering.

Read 'em and weep

Check here for all the latest gossip about alien abductions, Bigfoot, liver pills, and a windy singer they call Mariah.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 18, 2008, at the time of 4:00 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this hissing: http://biglizards.net/mt3.36/earendiltrack.cgi/2848

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Watcher Countdown - Two! Just Around the Corner...:

» Gleanings from Maggie's Farm
Two fine posts on PC gleaned from Big Lizards' Weasel Watchers:In a PC nation, how will the GOP run?The economic impact of political correctness [Read More]

Tracked on March 19, 2008 3:52 AM

Comments

Post a comment

© 2005-2009 by Dafydd ab Hugh - All Rights Reserved