Pamela Geller Gets Played: Salon's Strategy Works

This morning Pamela Geller is angrily denouncing Christine O'Donnell, Republican senatorial candidate for Delaware.  Geller endorsed O'Donnell early on, and O'Donnell posted Geller's endorsement on her website.  Then this week, a leftist online rag called Salon attacked O'Donnell for posting Geller's endorsement, repeating a lot of vicious lies and exaggerations about Pamela Geller.  Someone in O'Donnell's organization got spooked and removed Geller's endorsment from the O'Donnell website.  Geller saw the removal and went ballistic.  The Salon strategy worked:  Geller and O'Donnell were transformed from political allies into political enemies and a nasty public fight ensued.  Both Geller and O'Donnell will come away from this with mud on their faces.

Saul Alinsky stressed the use of ridicule and other strategies for causing political opponents to lose their tempers; once these opponents lost their tempers, they would self-destruct in a very public way, neutering themselves politically.  Geller has made herself a shining example of how effective this strategy can be.  With her ego gored, Geller was transformed into an attack dog for the left.

The only question in my mind is this:  how could Pamela Geller allow herself to be so easily played?  This stratagem will be celebrated in the annals of the left for years as an example of the effective use of slander and "playing one against the other."

The left has become quite effective at turning decent people into public pariahs through out and out lies and propaganda.  The reason, of course, is to silence these people, or erode their credibility with the public, or lacking that, to merely punish them by invoking as much psychic pain as possible.  Fueled by hatred and immorality, the purveyors of "tolerance" are truly hypocritical, anti-democratic and completely ruthless.  They will destroy the life of a political opponent if they can, or cause that opponent to suffer for his conscience for a very long time.  Examples are plentiful:  Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Joe McCarthy, Kathleen Harris, Linda Tripp, Carrie Prejean, Tom DeLay, Robert Stacy McCain, to  name only a few.  (See my former post "How the Left Punishes Conservatives.")  Now you can add Pamela Geller to the long and growing list of "the Slimed."

Pamela should have confined her concerns to private communications with the O'Donnell campaign.  Denouncing O'Donnell's "cowardice and lack of character" two weeks away from the election is truly destructive to the conservative cause.   Pamela, it isn't all about you.

Bill Maher Continues His Soft Blackmail of Christine O'Donnell

Bill Maher, the Commie Comedian, continues his soft blackmail of Christine O'Donnell:

Week Three of the Christine O’Donnell comic hostage crisis: As promised, Bill Maher pressed on with his Friday night embarrassment-by-installment campaign. He’s trying, and failing so far, to goad Delaware’s Republican/Tea Party candidate for Senate into appearing on his current HBO show, “Real Time,” by airing wacky comments from her appearances on his old ABC show, “Politically Incorrect.”

The latest clip, like the first one where she explains her teenage flirtation with witchcraft, reveals her affinity for religious experimentation — not to mention Italian food.

Maher is a worm.  Anyone in the public eye or who may run for office should take heed and avoid ever appearing on Maher's show.

Original story here.

Related:  Bill Maher Calls Republicans "a deadly enemy."

Powerline Rates Christine O'Donnell's Political Career as "R.I.P."

John Hinderaker of Powerline says Christine O'Donnell's political career is dead on arrival following revelations that she "once dabbled in witchcraft."  The revelation was made by television talk show host Bill Maher.  Powerline writes:

Bill Maher announced that he has previously-unseen clips of O'Donnell from the late 1990s when she appeared several times on his show. In one clip, she says that she once "dabbled into witchcraft."

Maher showed a video clip of O'Donnell when she appeared on his show in the late 1990's, where she said this:

I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. ... I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do....

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that. ... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

It appears to me that O'Donnell was speaking in a light-hearted way, trying to be entertaining and funny while on Maher's comedy show.  However, what one might say as an entertainer is considerably different from what they might say as a candidate.

Nevertheless, her comments will be used against her with great effect, complete with Maher's video used in attack ads.

Personally, I'd vote for a high-flying, cackling witch on a broomstick, complete with black cat, before I would vote for a "bearded Marxist," as O'Donnell's opponent has described himself.

It is obvious that if O'Donnell is to have a chance at winning this election, she will need to go negative early on, pounding Coons with his leftist, high taxes, job-destroying record.
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Christine O'Donnell and the Republican Establishment

Christine O'Donnell, Republican Senatorial
Candidate for Delaware

Tea Party candidates continue to upset Republican establishment candidates.  Christine O'Donnell won the senatorial primary in Delaware yesterday.  She was quickly denounced by the architect of our 2006 defeat, Karl Rove.  Furthermore, the GOP stated that they will not fund O'Donnell's campaign in November's general election.

For years we Republicans have had to endure one RINO candidate after another, put up by the Republican establishment.  The GOP's promise has not been to roll back Democrat big government statism; it  has been to more efficiently manage that statism.  That isn't good enough for conservatives.  We want to reverse the Democrats' incursion into the private sector, reduce taxes and the size of government.  Our goal is not to slow the socialist advance, it is to stop it and reverse it.

Those who argue for support of RINO candidates are still in "limit the damage" mode.  I believe that this mindset is on the wane.  Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh wondered why on earth we would want to vote for O'Donnell's opponent, Mike Castle.  What's the difference between a socialist with an R after his name and a socialist with a D after his name?

The recent "fight on the right" over O'Donnell vs Castle ruffled some Republican feathers, but it was a debate worth having.  For me, it brought increased moral clarity: to eschew RINO candidates and support real conservatives.

Our goal is to defeat and roll back liberalism.  Let's nominate real conservative candidates and take our chances in November.

Note:  See McCain's related post at American Spectator:  "This Changes Everything."
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Fight on the Right: Mark Levin Bad Mouths Paul Mirengoff of Powerline

Mark Levin Feeling Nasty

Mark Levin has been verbally duking it out with other conservatives who are skeptical of Christine O'Donnell.  O'Donnell is the Tea Party choice for Senator from Delaware.  She is opposed by Republican Mike Castle, the incumbent.  O'Donnell and Castle are vying for the primary battle tomorrow, when the GOP's candidate will be chosen by the voters.  The winner will then go on to the general election in November to oppose whoever the Democrat candidate is.

O'Donnell is said to be more conservative than RINO Mike Castle. Paul Mirengoff of Powerline felt that O'Donnell couldn't win, as she has been less than accurate in some of her public statements (Mirengoff says she was untruthful, not just wrong). He said:

Finally, though, we get to Delaware. There, in one of America's bluest states, the Tea Party Express and other activists are backing arch-conservative Christine O'Donnell. But there's no good case to made that O'Donnell is electable. She was trounced by Joe Biden, 65-35, last time out and she trails the Democrat running this time by about 10 percentage points.

Moreover, questions surround O'Donnell's finances. As I wrote here, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until I see concrete evidence of wrongdoing. But that won't stop O'Donnell from being hammered and ridiculed if she is nominated.

In addition, O'Donnell lately has displayed poor judgment and a lack of regard for the truth. She claimed in a radio interview that she had carried two of three Delaware counties in her race against Biden. Actually, she carried none. And, when asked about the Rasmussen poll showing her well behind the Democrat, she suggested that Rasmussen was fudging his results to favor the Republican establishment.

It's one thing to be strongly conservative; it's another to be paranoid.

Meanwhile, conservative lion Mark Levin endorsed O'Donnell for the seat, and did not appreciate Mirengoff's critical remarks. Levin responded:

Must be nice to sit on your ass in some law office in Washington lecturing tea party activists and others with such dripping arrogance and ignorance. We're confronting the most radical administration certainly in my lifetime, and Mirengoff blows off the grassroots movement that is doing more to bring constitutional government back to this nation than any other. No, all candidates are not perfect. That's not the nature of politics. And spewing the opposition research found on other sites, leaked in part by a party to a lawsuit involving the conservative candidate, is lazy and unfair. In fact, I notice nowhere in his superficial post does Mirengoff point out any establishment Republicans with defects, with temper issues, with Keating Five issues, etc., etc. Apparently there's one test for conservative candidates and another for establishment Republican candidates.

Mirengoff responded to Levin's attack, saying that Levin misrepresented his remarks, assigns positions to Mirengoff that the latter never voiced, and that Levin's comments were inaccurate or dishonest.  Mirengoff writes:

Levin's response consists mostly of a series of misstatements about me and misrepresentations of what I argued. The misstatements undermine his ad hominem arguments. The use of straw men undermines his more substantive ones. 

I agree with Mirengoff that Levin was dishonest and unfair in his rebuttal.  Furthermore, Levin was no gentleman, resorting to ad hominem attacks.  Frankly, Levin comes across as a mean-spirited blowhard in this disagreement.

Patterico's Pontifications read the posts I describe above and came to the same conclusion that I did:  that Mark Levin is behaving like an ass. Patterico said:

UPDATE: You know, I finally read through Levin’s Facebook post, and Paul Mirengoff’s post that Levin distorts. I am ready to jump into the war.

Levin’s post is packed with mischaracterizations. Just chock full of them. Expressed with the dripping arrogance of someone who apparently feels that, because he is better known than Mirengoff, he is entitled to say whatever he feels like about him — and the facts be damned.

I suppose caring about the facts probably makes me an inauthentic conservative in Mark Levin’s eyes. I don’t care. I’ll go with the facts, every time. Every time.

Levin replied to Patterico's post by calling him "an idiot and an ass."

Meanwhile, PPP polling shows the race between O'Donnell and Castle a dead heat.  I am not enthused about either candidate after reading the strange background of O'Donnell (she sued a conservative organization, claiming gender bias, and later dropped the suit) and Castle's less-than-conservative voting record.

However, I think I would go with O'Donnell and take my chances.  I've had it with RINOs.  Sarah Palin has endorsed O'Donnell, and even more important, Robert Stacy McCain has endorsed O'Donnell, and that counts a lot with me.

However, Mark Levin is still a prize ass for his thuggish behavior in this dispute.
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