The Hag of Harpur Hacks Away at the Obama Wreckage. Salon Flips Out in Horror

One of the more focused and unbending leftist sirens swirling in the ragzine circuit is Salon.com.  They purport to practice some strange form of balance on occasion like the times when they offered a slot to David Horowitz to blog with subscribers and submit articles for comment such as his article on the phony Rigoberta Menchú Tum [1]. These articles were sensations in the chat rooms where three Horowitz threads exceeded 30,000 posts[2][3][4] and they still magnetize the frustration and anger of the left.[5] Rush Limbaugh has had a similar success in absentia with my Sock it to Rush! Series[6][7][8][9] and some of these have apparently been deleted from the Salon Archives for political reasons.

Just to light the fires and get ready, we can review a previous criticism by Camille Paglia[10] on the Obama Health Care Follies:

“I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically[11] absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.”--Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's! By Camille Paglia

This academic query shaped mountains of foam and fury at Salon and the steaming piles of spittle and spite still stand tall as Hag of Harpur[12][13] continues to advertise her views in their sticky midst in spite of the maelstrom she creates for herself by opposing any warped but sacred tenet of the far left. Paraphrasing Oscar Wilde in reverse, the beauty of the Hag is in her intellectual gifts.[14] Camille packs more cognitive ammunition in her index finger than the best of the lefties can defend against in a concerted effort. Her comments hack deeply into what the soul of the liberals should be and would dispatch them reeling to the very floors of Hell to writhe in agony if they believed in any of that. She is the Queen of Darkness in political matters on Salon as she actually resides in the leftist camp and would expected to  be groveling under the shadow of the Great Obama. She refuses. The truth is apparently more important the chucking chum for the propagandists.

So, with this background, we sally forth into the current fray and test the mettle of the “intellectuals” against the crass mechanics of socialist government. This contribution includes some of her fan mail and those comments are woven into her web.

“I am amazed at the easy pass you still give the Obama administration. You continue to excuse his blunders and misses as the result of a lack of experience and bad advisors.

Many of Obama's policies have been a scary continuation of the worst ideas of the last year of the Bush administration, while undoing some of the few things they got right. By Hermes Diaz Miami.”[15]--Salon  The Web:  Obama's critical moment approaches By Camille Paglia Plus: Letters from a tea party organizer, Palin defender, Obama critic, Polanski supporter, male soprano and more [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

The reply to Hermes:

“Yes, ever since week one of the Obama administration, I have been doggedly calling for heads to roll. As months of crass ineptitude drag on, however, the blacklist of those who should be tagged for the guillotine gets longer and longer. The most recent fiasco, of course, was sending the president of the United States on a humiliating fool's errand to beg for the Olympics as a Chicago boondoggle. I cheered when splendiferous Rio de Janeiro rightfully got the gig.”-- Obama's critical moment approaches By Camille Paglia [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

This is so heretical that one wonders if paper copies of this ragzine might spontaneously burst into flames just after printing and spread burning sulfur fumes around the globe due to its mordant content.

She compounds the heresy with this rebuff of Obama:

“Count me among those who are very critical of many of Obama's actions or evasions but who continue to like him and to believe in his potential as a world leader. It's true he has accomplished nothing thus far and did not remotely deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, a gift carrying a terrible curse. The Nobel should have been the crown of Obama's career and not the butt of jokes.”-- Obama's critical moment approaches

Another letter:

“As a registered Independent, I am very concerned about where our country is headed. I am now a "right-wing terrorist" and have attended multiple Tea Parties. I host an active political Facebook page ("Pensacola Teaparty"). This is the first time in my 44 years that I have been involved in politics.”

“I am sickened to see our Constitution being trampled on day after day. I am disgusted with the corruption and dirty politics being played on both sides of the aisle. I am infuriated that our elected officials arrogantly refuse to listen to We the People, no matter how many genuinely concerned citizens peacefully congregate at town halls or on the streets of Washington, D.C.”-- Cheryl Casey

Replies the Hag:

“The mainstream media's failure to honestly cover last month's mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. was a disgrace. The focus on anti-Obama placards (which were no worse than the rabid anti-LBJ, anti-Reagan or anti-Bush placards of leftist protests), combined with the grotesque attempt to equate criticism of Obama with racism, simply illustrated why the old guard TV networks and major urban daily newspapers are slowly dying. Only a simpleton would believe what they say.”

And one more from Dale Livingston:

“The purpose of this message is to express my outrage at the frequent criticism of Sarah Palin for having gone to five schools before she graduated from the University of Idaho. What many of her critics fail to understand, or smugly disdain, is the reason she attended several schools. Sarah's parents told their four children that they could not afford to pay their way through college, and if any of them wanted to go on to college, they must figure a way to pay for it on their own.”-- Dale Livingston

The Hagly Comment:

“Thank you very much for your personal testimony. I too have been repulsed by the elitist insults flung at Sarah Palin in the massive, coordinated media effort to destroy her. Hence I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that Palin, despite all the dirt thrown at her by liberal journalists and bloggers, keeps bouncing back as if unscathed. No sooner did the gloating harpies of the Northeastern media think they had torn her to shreds than she exploded into number one on Amazon.com with a memoir that hadn't even been printed yet! With each one of these amusing triumphs, Palin is solidifying her status as a bona fide American cultural heroine.”-- Obama's critical moment approaches

Needless to say, the loyal supplicants who read Salon for the clinical maintenance of their leftist prejudices have flown into a rage.[16] An example:

“Salon, a pox on your house for continuing to publish this outrage-bait.”-- Boxcar Aldous Huxley

Gee. It is difficult to imagine how many spongy hot buttons Camille pushed in this one article.  But, in my 13 years on T able Talk on Salon.com I have had entire threads devoted to attacking my ideas and person.[17] I attack ideas and not individual posters on that thread but my comments about, say, Hillary or Bill are taken personally by the True Believers who study the writings in the ragzine for personal support. Paglia routinely encourages a rejoinder of several orders of magnitude compared to my works. Salon, thusly, acts as some eerie form of elastic pessary[18] that limply supports the political body of this ragzine as it passes through menopause destined for some stainless steel bucket. The response by the rabid left soars beyond the ordinary clinical diagnosis of mere psychosis. They feel intellectually violated [if you can fuse intellectualism with liberalism and keep your bib dry] as well as drawn and quartered with these comments.

But, who can legitimately argue with the content here? Can we refute The Hag and attempt to tarnish the beauty of her intellect with some data that would debase her views or talking points? Who can say that? Obama has accomplished nothing and risks being slurped into something that resembles the Jimmy Carter Malaise. The economy is crashing and Obama tears off pieces of the debt and tosses them to his guard dogs to keep the din down. Presdient Obama may soon be hailed world wide as the Second Hoover.

Camille Paglia has again lectured the rabid left on their mental and political deficiencies and sent her detractors spinning off into some dismal swamp. A fine work in the tradition of Saint Joan of Arc.

rycK

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com