Well, apart from the largess of the Scafie Foundation, the perennial smug, comfy air of victimhood, the rampant nepotism, and the ability to get the most fascile, dipshit, poorly sourced crap published, there are no rewards.

Really, what could be less lucrative than being a conservative?
—–
Maybe … being a CEO who runs a huge and profitable business into near-bankruptcy. That can’t possibly pay well.

Right?

Quick! Somebody call the WAAAAHbulance! Some neocon gasbag is feeling sorry for herself!

(Just a note that you don’t have to be conservative to benefit from nepotism. You just have to choose conservative parents…)

Don’t forget that Jesus personally gives a hummer (not the vehicle) to all registered Republicans as they enter Heaven. He just loves them that much.

Liberals get a bitch-slap upside the head.

No reward except blissful, happy, comfortable ignorance…like a warm blanket.

I haven’t looked into this much yet, but someone did email me this link to a post about David Horowitz and Robert Spencer being funded by some interesting families. I need to read the whole thing though, links and all.

How funny. It is so much easier to get ahead as a conservative — just as it was in the Reagan years. And yet they don’t attract top talent. They have to mine places like liberty university to find people for top jobs at justice. Someone like Debbie Schussel gets tv time as a conservative commentator. Someone like Doctor Helen has a following. People listen to Ann Althouse and box turtle ben. When I think of how few people have jumped on the conservative gravy train, esp. as measure by how dim their leading lights are, my faith in human nature is restored.

On reading the S,N! post, I assumed she must be talking about spiritual rather than financial rewards – y’know, the whole “How come nobody worships selfish fucking assholes like me and my friends any more?” bit.

On reading the article, of course, I see that she is indeed talking in purely financial terms.

She should have gone with my original interpretation; it would have been equally mendacious, but slightly more believable.

See, she’s right, though. The entire concept of problem-solving is liberally biased; real conservatives simply refuse to acknowledge that a problem exists (c.f. “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.”)

And as far as the lack of rewards goes, you simply have to look at the fact that Republican politicians are so rarely elected to national office!

Sophie–never forget that Malkin pulls in $$$ from her books, TV appearances, Guest Hosting The O’Really Factor, plus her syndicated column. All of this despite cheerleading like an epileptic chicken in her spare time on the interweb. And when Ann Coulter (just imagine those royalties) made her infamous “fag joke”, Malkin was right there denouncing her and anyone defending her trying to take her place as top FoxDog. The hunger in her eyes was interestingly eager.

And yet they don’t attract top talent.

Not in the government, at least, probably because conservatives care about the money and government jobs don’t pay as well as private-sector jobs do. The short of it is that you end up with tenth-rate people like W who have failed in business.

I’d like to focus more on the beginning of her statement:

It seems that eventually politics gravitates towards the liberal side of the aisle.

Here we have an election that will be between whichever Republican can convince the base that he is to the right of Genghis Khan, and on the Democratic side, either a centrist, pro-war, pro-corporate shill or a slightly left-of-center moderate who recently extolled the virtues of Ronald Reagan. Can someone please explain how that proves that “politics gravitates towards the liberal side of the aisle”?

I think she means that the liberals give money away to solve problems, and nobody wants to turn that down, which is why liberal solutions are used instead of the more difficult, moral, holy conservative solution, which is to do nothing.

Her commentors are little echoes, saying let the lazy bastards starve if they want help.

“Can someone please explain how that proves that “politics gravitates towards the liberal side of the aisle”?”

Easy! Just take a spoon, slide the spoon under your eyeball, and move it around left to right, until you’ve severed the bothersome cerebellum from the rest of the brain.

Frankly, after reading the interview, I couldn’t tell many of Frum’s supposedly conservative responses from that of a liberal Democrat

Yeah, it’s real hard not to get supposedly conservative David Frum mixed up with a liberal Democrat.

This is because Frum used to be Bush’s speechwriter, and Bush is being mysteriously rewritten by wingnut historians as a non-conservative non-Republican LIBERAL, in the same manner that Hitler is being rewritten as a leftist socialist vegetarian animal lovin’ nanny-stater.

Just google “Bush is a liberal” and you’ll find all kinds of crazy shit like this.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:ju9BBys-EnoJ:www.americanthinker.com/2005/01/bush_too_conservative.html

What’s more dishonest than moving the goalposts?

Smokebombing the entire stadium in an attempt to keep spectators from viewing the playing field.

When I think of how few people have jumped on the conservative gravy train, esp. as measure by how dim their leading lights are, my faith in human nature is restored.

I think the problem is the engineered incompetence. Movement conservatives want people who agree with them, all the time (i.e., “loyal Bushies”). They also can’t or won’t admit they are wrong, ever. So by design, you end up with people who can’t tell when Dear Leader is full of shit (e.g., not smart), don’t care when Dear Leader is full of shit (e.g., not competent), or some combination of the two (e.g, Mrs Professor).

Since smart people recognize shitfulness when they see it, and competent people eschew shitfulness, anyone who is smart and competent will eventually ask, “Hey, does anyone else smell raw sewage?” At which point they are purged from the movement.

The only smart people they can put up with are those who are ethically-challenged and willing to play along for personal gain. The only competent people they can put up with are those who are ethically-challenged and able to do the dirty work. There are several lists of the smart and competent members of movement conservatism: we call them “grand jury indictments”.

“Politics” isn’t moving to the left, these shit-tards are rocketing further right. The Chi-Con screams “Moar War! (But no Draft)” and people in office look at things like how much it would cost and whether it is necessary and say “No, you’ll have to make do with the war you have.” And the Chi-Con screams “Waaah! Nasty Librul!”

The Theo-Con screams “Lock up teh GheyZ!” and the people in office realize there would be a battle royale (and some of the Theo’s would wind up in camps). and say “No.”

“Waaaah! Nasty Librul!”

And on and on and on. Deport all the illegal immigrants? Sure, you round them up and play for the travel. Ignore global warming? Fine, buy a boat and stock up on water, asshole.

The neo-cons want shit that isn’t just inhumane, or just crazy, it’s just plain impossible. We’re talking marshmallow unicorns that grant wishes and jelly bean dragons that shit diamonds.

The ideal neo-con world is one where the neo-con himself could not survive. But by demanding crazy-assed shit that they know they will not get they get their Persecution itch scratched 24/7.

And that’s all they really want.

I’m starting to see a direct correlation between the election heating up and with the wackier posts on wingnut sites. Even the posts unrelated to the U.S. elections. It’s like a full moon until November. People are reveling in the madness, and it is spreading.

Even with the debates. I saw the last few minutes of the GOP debates last night, and the question was “Why would Ronald Reagan Endorse You?”. I may have been hallucinating, but I’m pretty sure that really happened.

Dorothy, I think you are exactly right. But it still makes me feel at least a little hopeful that people who are smart and competent are still willing to ask “Hey, does anyone else smell raw sewage?” [heh, heh] even if they know it’ll mean the end of their rise to power.

(Lex) Skink Tyree (Azagthoth) , fair enough, but my point is: why are we even paying attention to Malkin? Sure, she’s cute and exotic, but I grew up in Hawaii where there were many, many, nmany smarter and cuter Filipino girls. She does not write well, she does not offer any meaningful insights. As my first husband used to say, quoting someone (I don’t remember who): Malkin and all the rest “owe the preeminence chiefly to the flatness of the surrounding terrain.”

Dr. Mrs. Instarube is a non-entity.

Sophie, I agree completely, which is why so many have tried to jump on that bandwagon. Many have succeeded. Others just don’t seem to know how to make the jump though.

I though, unless reminded, rarely even remember to check in on Malkin. The numbers are relatively few in the big bucks category but they did thrive after 9/11 especially. Have you ever been to an Ann Coulter speech/book signing? I went to one being held half a mile from my home. I lived in town in a very liberal area (yearns to go back…sigh) and was shocked at how many people had come out, I’m talking thousands, and how just everyday people they looked. And each bought a book. And we counted the # of men that we were sure just wanted to touch her hair.

Then, a few books later, Coulter was taking on Evolutionary Biology for FOUR freakin’ chapters with her “evidence” sandwiched between awkward stabs at either Darwin or Gould. They’re the best these hero-less wankers can get, so they’ll take their Jonahs and even believe that the pic for his column even remotely resembles the real him as long as they don’t have to think but just digest new idiotic arguments to regurgitate to people like you or me.

/rant off

I know liberal welfare paid for my minimansion, and my husband’s political connections help me balance my many media duties with lucrative consulting work. Shame someone can’t do that for Dr. Helen.

But it still makes me feel at least a little hopeful that people who are smart and competent are still willing to ask “Hey, does anyone else smell raw sewage?” [heh, heh] even if they know it’ll mean the end of their rise to power.

This is synchronicity–I just ran across this news story:

In May 2006, FEMA asked ATSDR to compose a “health consultation” on the FEMA trailers. Dr. Christopher De Rosa, chief of toxicology for ATSDR, told FEMA that any report on health risks of exposure to formaldehyde would have to include information on the risk of cancer and other potential long-term problems. At that point, De Rosa was cut out of the loop. […]
When, nine months later, De Rosa learned ATSDR had omitted the key health information in its advisory, he drafted a letter to FEMA trial attorney Patrick Edward Preston. “I am concerned that this health consultation is incomplete and perhaps misleading,” De Rosa wrote. […]
other health information, including the likelihood of other toxic gases, such as toluene, being present, was omitted, as was De Rosa’s insistence that ATSDR call for the government to take immediate action to end formaldehyde exposure to trailer residents and monitor them for long-term harmful effects. Records show that following his protests, De Rosa in October 2007 was “reassigned” out of his long-term post as director of ATSDR’s divison of toxicology and environmental medicine.

Of course, no one else in FEMA could smell the raw sewage–it was covered up by the formaldehyde.

nothing, but it is easier if you “helped create the very office that issued the contract”

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14898

Maybe they mean spiritual rewards? Yeah, that has to be it.