The writer here says his intent is not to indulge in mere "gotchas."

However, bold statements were made in 2008, which are the direct opposites of equally bold statements made in 2011.

Explanations are required.

Yesterday, Rush warned his massive audience that Romney is no conservative:

"Romney is not a conservative. He's not, folks. You can argue with me all day long on that, but he isn't... This isn't personal, not with what country faces and so forth. I like him very much. I've spent some social time with him. He's a fine guy. He's very nice gentleman. He is a gentleman. But he's not a conservative."

That's not a vitriolic attack in the least, but it's certainly an ideological judgment -- one that many people share. But what was Rush's assessment of Romney a few years ago, when he was in a dogfight with John McCain and Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination? Let's hop into the memory machine and flash back to Rush's broadcast on Super Tuesday, 2008:

"I think now, based on the way the campaign has shaken out, that there probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and thatÂ’s Romney. The three stools or the three legs of the stool are national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives. The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way."

Following that monologue, Rush posted this headline on his website:

I sort of understand the flip-flop, as I've done it myself. I got all aboard Team Romney (after being on Team Giuliani and then Team Thompson first) as an Anyone But McCain (or Huckabee) move. And yet, despite endorsing him (late in the game) in 2008, I have been in Anyone But Romney mode for some time.

So I understand this... some.

I guess what Benson wants explained -- and what I'd like explained too -- is how Romney was categorized as "conservative" in 2008 and is now apparently "not a conservative" in 2011.

You can say we can do better, or we should try for a stronger conservative, someone who's politics aren't so tactical (and therefore changeable); but to say he's not a conservative at all? After that kind of an endorsement in 2008?

One reason for this is that people don't realize themselves they've flip flopped, or that their positions have at least changed and hardened, and only notice the changes in others' positions. As Joe Walsh sang (ironically) in "Life's Been Good:"

Everybody's so different,
I haven't changed

Biggest example here: No one was particularly upset by RomneyCare in 2008. As a group, conservatives might have been unimpressed by it, or even wary, but they weren't ideologically and pragmatically hostile to it.

We hadn't thought enough about it to have a firm opinion. (Most of us. I'm sure some people hated it from Jump Street.)

But by now, in 2011, we have now considered this issue, and have made some firm conclusions, and our conclusion is that ObamaCare is awful, and its forerunner is awful too.

There's nothing wrong with that-- except that most of us don't realize we ourselves have shifted in opinion. Because the change feels organic to us, we are scarcely even aware there was a change at all.

Something similar happened with immigration. Bush was yammering about a Pathway to Citizenship very early in his presidential career. Most of us shrugged. Personally I wasn't a super-fan of this kind of talk, but I wasn't really bothered by it either.

Until he actually tried to ram his plan through. By that point I had thought more about it, had pieced together what I thought and why I thought it. (And the "why," of course, is Racism.)

But Bush didn't really "change" in 2006. I had changed.

The Republican Party has gotten a lot more conservative on ten major issues since 2006. When liberals say "They're more conservative than Bush was!!!," they're right. We are. We've shifted, most of us, and as a group at least, a good 10 or 20 degrees to the right since 2006.

My point is that if everyone's shifting, it's not altogether fair to point at a couple of politicians and shout about now heretical positions they once held, back when they weren't heresies at all (or only minor heresies).

What matters is currently-held positions. Or at least that matters the most.

Now, this doesn't really get Romney off the hook because he's still defending this monstrosity. And it doesn't get Perry off the hook about in-state tuition for illegals because he too is still defending it. (Or was, until his heartless comment cost him the election.)

But overall some perspective is needed. The stuff Rush Limbaugh is talking about now, the stuff he's agitating for, the tip-top stuff on his agenda, is not what he was talking about in 2008.

All of us are talking about different things. We are not the same people we were in 2006 or 2008, and we're not the same party.

It's a little silly for we, who have changed our own politics, shifting further to the right consistently for four years, to get too incensed about a politician's positions from before the Great Red Shift.

I put politician in italics because politicians are not philosophers. They're salesman for a particular electoral politics that can get a 51% share at the marketplace. What they sell depends largely on what the public is buying.

And the public -- the conservative electorate -- is buying something different now.

I guess I'm just more cynical on this than the average base voter. I expect these guys to be whores and pander to me. If they weren't pandering to me, I imagine I'd find a candidate who does pander to me more. In other words, these guys aren't Shapers of the Base's Beliefs. They do some of that, but mostly they are themselves shaped by the base's beliefs.

Given that the Great Red Shift is real, and really did move the party to a more purist/back to basics/constitutionalist/question everything mode, I'm not that upset that a politician might have been squishy, like much of the movement was, in 2006 or 2008. Bonus points if he never deviated from current doctrine, but the most important thing is where he is now.

Another Example: From 2002-2006 or even 2008, the thought of "bugging out" of Iraq and Afghanistan was anathema to conservatives.

Currently, I'd say it's a majority or near-majority position (minus the semantics of calling it a "bug out").

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (315)
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I started to swing by the Greenway on my walk to work from the train station this morning and throw a few bars of Irish Spring at these maggots, but they appear happy in their filth.

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - The Coast Guard in Boston confirmed that a woman in uniform was harassed and spat upon near Occupy Boston protesters.

The woman was walking to the train and said protesters spit on her twice, called her foul names and even threw a water bottle at her.

Classy.

But of course, the organizers of this rabble blame it on people who aren't really part of the group. Because, you know, Coasties get spit on all the time around here or something.

Devon Pendleton, a spokesman for Occupy Boston, doesn't believe that those male protestors are actually part of the movement. However, Pendleton wants to be clear, that if protestors are responsible for doing something so disrespectful, he'd like to apologize on behalf of Occupy Boston.

Remember when the press was interested in getting details right and didn't blame tea partiers for every conceivable bad act that occurred within a 50-mile radius of a tea party rally? Yeah, me neither.

Sorry, Occupy Boston - you own this.

Posted by: andy at 06:50 AM | Comments (299)
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UPDATE: Here's the link to the email archive. Enjoy.

Original post follows:

Last time Ace worked on something this big with Breitbart, a Dem congressman wound up resigning and the seat flipped to the GOP to boot.

So expectations are high.

In keeping with the new media notion of crowdsourcing–enthusiastically embraced by the mainstream media when trawling through Sarah Palin’s emails–Big Government will be providing readers later today with links to a document drop consisting of thousands of emails.

The email archive, created by a private cyber security researcher, appears to contain messages shared by the left’s anarcho-socialist activists during the strategic and daily tactical planning of the “Occupy Wall Street” and broader “Occupy” campaign this fall.

Big Government received a tip about the existence of the archive, and we were able to contact the individual who compiled and posted it. He will describe the archive, and how he obtained the emails, later this morning exclusively on Big Government.

Through “crowdsourcing,” the media and the public will then be able to discover the truth behind the “Occupy” movement. (emphasis added)

More juicy details at the link, and we'll update with the document drop when it's available.

This is gonna be fun.

Posted by: andy at 04:15 AM | Comments (322)
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Friday! Wooooooooo!!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (166)
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Still travelling so that means you get new low-fat, dietetic ONT.

Japan Is The Most Rational Country?

Well that's one way to interpret this World Values Survey (WVS) which compares countries on an x-y axis of self-expression versus traditionalism.

It's interesting how countries tend to cluster together in cultural groups.And it turns out that the Anglosphere really does have a unique place in world values.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:37 PM | Comments (893)
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DETAILS DEVELOPING....

Rick Perry and his top-notch economic advisors are releasing the framework of a startling and paradigm-shattering new plan...

We here at AOSHQ along with some large media outlets and other, lesser, blogs are in the process of receiving the bare bones of this plan, with fill-in details to come later.

All we can tell you right now is that they call it:

"8-8-8."

All credit for this joke goes to scottw.

Posted by: LauraW at 05:42 PM | Comments (315)
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Dear OWS Folks: From One Of Their Own

Conan is asked, "What is good in life?"

You've people got it backwards. Capitalism calls for insolvent banks to fail. Socialism calls for them to be bailed out.

submitted 11 hours ago by r3compile

Edit: Some more complete thoughts:

The free market gets rid of risky, unstable businesses. Capitalism means if you don't have a viable product, you go away. People vote with their own money.

In Socialism, you vote with other people's money. You keep throwing good money after bad because you like the idea of a stable bank and you don't want to admit that it needs to go bankrupt.

All a businessman can do is try to sell you something that you think is worth the money.

But a government can take your wealth by force, and allocate it to an area that has no viable market, purely for the benefit of catering to voters and trying to get re-elected.

As long as we have a big government trying to run every aspect of the economy, it will be taken advantage of by some minority to the detriment of the majority.

I sympathize with the message of OWS thanks banks get special favors from government. But the answer isn't to give more special favors to labor unions and employees. The answer is to get the government out of the way and let the market flush out all these bad banks so a viable economy can rise.

Bring on the downvotes.

And brought they were. This gem was buried furiously by the lefty brethen of a certain site we will not name, but its initials are REDDIT.

What follows is a long and furious discussion of Socialism vs. Capitalism, and some of it is pretty damn interesting, and some of it is pretty damn funny, if you're into watching lefties argue amongst themselves.

One thing strikes me: a lot of these lefties? Not actually so very far to the left as they think they are. Nope. Not so much.
Frankly, many of them seem to be conflicted.

What capitalism has going for it that no amount of Marxist Econ 101 professors can ever undo, is that it comes so naturally to us.

Posted by: LauraW at 05:40 PM | Comments (51)
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Counter-analysis: No they can't.

Even-more-counter analysis: So why waste our time, and potentially expose anti-terror intel techniques, weakening our defensive posture?

Bonus-counter-analysis: Just to get the UN to go along with more ineffective sanctions, which they won't by the way.

Bargain-counter-analysis: Which of course is why, this pathetic administration will go groveling to the UN and present all their evidence.

For nothing.

"They haven't settled on a game plan yet," a council ambassador told Reuters. "They're considering all options. More sanctions, a resolution, a condemnation, it's all possible."

Look I'm not pressing for B-2s over Tehran. But begging the UN for cooperation on this isn't worth it. As my dad used to say "Son, that juice just ain't worth the squeeze."

Then he swiped my yard work cash.

I never really got the connection between those two things.

BONUS (via DrewM): What to serve the visiting President of South Korea? How about Japanese steaks?

Smart diplomacy begins at the dinner table.

BONUS BONUS [via Jennifer]: Rep. Linda Sanchez as coached by Ed Schultz: Republican senators aren't patriots, they don't want to see us raise new taxes in order to pretend we're creating jobs.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:58 PM | Comments (141)
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Important information: You can never invite a midget and a chimp to the same party, because the chimp will immediately attack the midget.

And I thought you guys were circus.

Posted by: Ace at 02:56 PM | Comments (322)
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Fun little screencap sent to me by Matt.

Look at the pictures. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (304)
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