Man alive, when you require 2700 words to explain your way out of 900, maybe it’s best to just …. stay down.

Early on, even before Big Government opened, when Big Hollywood was still in its infancy, I was introduced to Conor Friedersdorf through an email he sent to Andrew Breitbart asking him for an editorial job. Without comment, Andrew forwarded Conor’s email and since I was still green, I didn’t really know what to make of someone who felt that he should be installed in a position where he would ensure the political arguments made by our contributors were intellectually sound (that was the crux of his inquiry — really). Did Andrew agree with him? Had he forwarded the email to make some sort of point?

Brei-i-i-i-itbaaaart!!!

But the more of Conor’s inquiry I read, the wider the smile reached across my face. It was obvious the  author was a young, arrogant, self-serious clown who thought he was pretty special but was really only blessed with the necessary lack of self-awareness required to allow him to keep on keeping on without ever noticing that the whole wide world was laughing at him — especially his liberal friends who only kept him around because he was useful. Just as Colonel Klink on “Hogan’s Heroes” was never aware he was being used by Colonel Hogan — that he was a walking joke respected by no one and only flattered when it was necessary to get him to help the other side – so too is Conor Friedersdorf.

If you read the opening paragraphs of Conor’s reactionary and defensive response to us (and Breitbart specifically — who Conor is somewhat obsessed with), this is how he presents his conservative bonifides:

I’ve shown that the DEA callously prevents sick people from getting useful therapy, highlighted work done by the Institute for Justice to advance economic freedom, called out the TSA for its harassment of air travelers, noted that kidney patients are dying needlessly, urged on efforts to rein in excessive public employee pensions in California, called for a repeal of the light-bulb law, highlighted Orwellian threats to privacy, and complained that federal prosecutors misallocate resources.

I’ve profiled Gary Johnson, formulated 11 questions all presidential candidates should be asked to test their civil liberties bonifides, urged the tea party movement to embrace Mitch Daniels, warned against the inexperience of Michele Bachmann, and even curated nearly 100 fantastic pieces of journalism!

(more…)

…And congratulations to me, for I have won the BIG office pool.

Here at the BIGS, we all picked squares to back up our prediction of who would be the first member of the MSM to compare the upcoming Sarah Palin documentary”The Undefeated” to Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous pro-Nazi propaganda film. “Triumph of the Will.”

Looking oh-so sincere and innocent in black and white…

Personally, my gut told me this person would have to be uncommonly angry and cruel; someone willing to stoop to a level of partisan inhumanity where few fear to tread, someone so despicably desperate to destroy another they would use a political figure’s own children as weapons of attack.

Well, according to my Google Alert… Ladies and gents, Mr. Andrew Sullivan:

“If someone gives it a chance and watches it, watches the film, I think they will be surprised at the caricature that’s been drawn and the contrast to reality. I just think every aspect of it is so powerful, you cannot walk away from this film looking at Sarah Palin the same way. You just can’t,” – Meg Stapleton, on the upcoming propaganda movie, “Triumph Of The Will” “The Undefeated.”

(more…)

An informative and intelligent discussion that desperately needed to be had outside the world of the news media and inside Maher’s world — the world of popular culture.

The most telling moment here is the audience reaction after Maher pulls no punches and says the following: 

“What it comes down to, is that there is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them. And they say, ‘Look, we are a religion of peace, and if you disagree, we’ll cut your fucking head off.’”

The studio audience … applauds.

In the past, whenever Maher’s brought this truth up in this way, his audience has audibly gasped as the silent tension became thick and immediate. At this point, Maher was always on his own as his guests shifted uncomfortably in their chairs and the audience gulped for air to fight off a case of the PC vapors.

To his credit, though, Maher keeps on keeping on, keeps making this case and telling this truth as he sees it, and it appears now as though it’s finally penetrating.

(more…)

So Joy Behar had writer Andrew Sullivan on her show to discuss Sarah Palin, and by “discuss,” I mean drag her through the mud by her pony tail. My favorite part was when Behar describes Sarah’s “people” as “evil and nasty”–right before she and Sullivan go evil on Palin, launching into a 10 minute dissertation on the “hard to believe” story of the birth of Trig.

Check it out, check it outers:

Of course, Sullivan isn’t alleging a cover-up–he just can’t believe Palin’s story. Meaning, of course he’s alleging a cover-up. Whatever–the whole obsession makes me queasy–much in the way Truthers, Birthers and Sullivan’s bushy beard do as well.

Anyway, Sullivan is dining out on this, and why shouldn’t he? He is, after all, the latest recipient of the “Strange New Respect” award. This award was first coined by the American Spectator roughly thirty years ago, given to any one labeled a conservative who then veers left. This is the easiest way to gain any respect from the media: slide on over to their side, unbutton your shirt and tell them, “hey, you were right all along.” (more…)

Apart from the fact that she’s a smoking hot California babe and I’m a 47-year-old mother of two teenage sons, Carrie Prejean and I do have some things in common. We’re both from San Diego. We both attend The Rock, an urban mega-church pastored by former San Diego Chargers defensive back, Miles McPherson. And we’ve both been slammed as raging “homophobes” by the New Media left. 

So when Andrew Breitbart asked me if I’d interview Carrie about her new book, Still Standing, out November 9 from Regnery, I chuckled and thought: The liberal faithful will think this is perfect: One “fanatical homophobe” interviewing another. 

Except that they would be wrong.

In case you’ve been living under a rock this year, Carrie Prejean is the former Miss California who became an accidental lightning rod in the spring. At a glitzy pageant held April 19 at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Carrie appeared poised to be crowned Miss USA. But during the final segment of the contest, a Q&A with pageant judges, Carrie drew as her questioner the gay gossip aficionado, Perez Hilton. 

Ignoring the longstanding pageant tradition of steering clear of politically charged questions, Hilton launched this salvo: “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”  (more…)

To which I respond to my unofficial biographer Conor Friedersdorf’s Daily Beast criticism of your’s truly and bigger fish Andrew Sullivan’s two-thumbs-up to it:                             

Andrew Sullivan (left) and Conor Friedersdorf

In the piece you link to and affirm in the Daily Beast, “The Right’s Lesser Press,” Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions. It’s sloppy and you, of all people, should know better.

Breitbart.com is MOSTLY a news aggregator. It carries the Associated Press, Reuters, even, Agence France Presse, from those dreaded croissant eaters!!!

It even carries the New York Times on its front page — a benefit that even Big Government and Big Hollywood don’t receive.

Big Hollywood is what it is: a counter-voice to the virtually monolithic Hollywood left. How dare I grant a platform, and a means for the defense of those in Hollywood who would dare go against the strident and intolerant Hollywood left.

Big Government, too, is providing an outlet for voices and ideas that are not proportionally represented in the traditional and mostly biased mainstream media.

(more…)

Michael Blowhard, of 2Blowhards.com fame, describes himself as “…. a blogger who has lived and worked in the NYC arts and media worlds for 30 years, and who worked in and around the NYC trade book publishing world for 15 years.”   Surely, I surmised, this is someone who may have some answers.  Mr. Blowhard was gracious enough to answer at length a series questions via email.

Do you think that there are fewer conservatives (artistic, political, or both) in the arts generally, and literature in particular?

A two-part answer.

Part one is that I have a super-inclusive view of “culture.” We’re all immersed in culture whether we know it or not, and whether we want to be or not. We clothe ourselves, we watch TV and movies and flip through magazines, we eat, we listen to stories and jokes, we drive cars and have opinions about airports and restaurants … That’s all culture. So from that point of view we’re *all* “in the arts.”   (more…)