Looking for the “podcast?” Download the MP3 at Captain’s Quarters.
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Third and final day of CPAC. I asked Judge Charles Pickering (pictured) his opinion of blogs. (See Judicial battles stem from culture war)

Blogging is citizen participation, which is good, and blogging is a lot like pamphleteering during the American Revolution. I made the same comparison in Blogging Matt Drudge. Responsible bloggers make great contributions to democracy.

I attended a session this morning called “The Entitlement Crash.” Standard fare about social security reform, health care reform, and the success of welfare reform, but a couple of comments at the end caught my attention. Moderator Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation made a reference to the Lord. Hold the phone! An elderly woman who asked a question about raising the retirement age takes care of her elderly mother. Long lives! Before Ferrara answered the question, he said something like, “You’re doing the Lord’s work taking care of your mother, by the way…”

The Lord’s work. I was overjoyed to hear that. As much as people malign Christianity, there is a strong sense of family responsibility throughout the Bible. I’ve heard some Christians argue that putting your elderly parents in a nursing home is unbiblical. Part of honoring our mothers and fathers means that we take care of them in their old age. Back in the day, that’s what a lot of people did before the nanny state took over. The very idea that we sacrifice and take care of those who took care of us is so…

3:24 p.m.: I broke off mid-sentence. Got distracted! First, I had lunch with the man from the endangered species list I mentioned yesterday and missed the session on illegal immigration. I’m not complaining, though.

Second, ran into and took photos with Richard Miniter, whose book I reviewed. Great read. Was introduced to and took photos with Joel Mowbray. We talked about why he doesn’t have a blog. Third, I was interviewed on Ed Morrissey’s radio show. Reception was very bad in the hotel, so I became a walking Verizon commercial. “Can you hear me now? How about now?” As soon as Ed said he could hear me clearly, I stopped abruptly. I was standing in the middle of a crowded room practically shouting as Ed and Mitch Berg interviewed me about CPAC. Hilarious. But fun.

This morning I met and took a photo of a lovely Muslim woman who works for Muslims for America. I regret not asking her questions, but I will set up a time to speak with her about global terrorism, her opinion about the cartoon riots, etc. I had a too-brief chat with Michelle Malkin. No photos.

Either tonight or tomorrow, I’ll post more pictures and finish my thoughts on the Entitlement session and offer final thoughts on this year’s CPAC. I must mention all the great bloggers I saw again and others I met for the first time.

10:15 p.m.: My interview with Mitch Berg and Captain Ed is available for download. I thought I was shouting because of the noise around me, but I wasn’t. Cool.

Correction: Ken Yarmosh and I presented “Crash Course on Blogging” on Thursday afternoon. In the interview I said Friday.

If you’d like us to present this two-hour course at your organization, please contact me or Ken.

Sweet dreams…

Update (2/13): CPAC is already a fading memory. Playing catch up with neglected tasks will occupy my week, but I’m glad I attended. (pictured with author Richard Miniter)

CPAC is the place to be if you want to network with and meet well-known conservatives. I thought of skipping the conference this year; I’m glad I changed my mind.

I would like to have seen more “debate” on the two panels I saw, but since panelists pretty much agreed with each other, there wasn’t much. Other bloggers complained about that, too. The organizers should have invited a few liberals to add spark. Perhaps they were invited but turned down the invites.

Then again, the homogeneity is comforting and affirming, especially if you’re around liberals all day.

A man on the Entitlement panel made a comment that ties in loosely with Star Parker’s latest book, White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay. Robert Moffitt of The Heritage Foundation said that government aid programs used to be for the indigent (no news there) but have become a middle-class entitlement. Think health care subsidies, the broken Social Security system, etc.

Without a clear and unrevised historical perspective, people tend to forget that Americans in general used to have a healthy suspicion of the government. That’s no longer the case. We all complain about rising health care costs, but health care is a business like anything else. As extreme as this may sound to nanny staters’ ears (conservatives included), we have no “right” to free or reduced-cost health care or to expect the government to help to keep us healthy. Radical, isn’t it? If you think so, then you understand how far we’ve fallen.

You’ve heard of the trickle down theory popularized by Ronald Reagan, haven’t you? The idea is that investing in companies and giving them tax breaks will benefit the entire economy. Well, the entitlement mentality has worked in reverse, a trickle up theory, if you will. The “right” to government benefits has spread from the “poor” to the higher classes.

It seems the definition of “indigent” has changed over the years. Once upon a time, the government adopted the very biblical concept of taking care of “widows and orphans.” Bums were excluded. There was also a distinction between the working poor and bums. People with little money but who worked for a living were proud and didn’t want government handouts. If someone labored at a back-breaking and thankless job but took care of his family and paid his bills, he was and still is intrinsically different from the “poor” person who didn’t want to work.

These days “the poor” are lumped in one big group, as if they are a uniquely identifiable group. The “poor” woman collecting a government check with no interest in ever working and who continues to have kids she can’t afford is different from the woman who gets up every morning and clocks in. A man who makes a family, married to the mother of the children or not, and goes to a low-paying job to make sure they have shelter, food, and clothing is of a different character than the “poor,” fit-looking bums on the street hustling me for money.

But character, good or bad, is an antiquated and “judgmental” notion that went out of style with the dinosaurs.

In our economic system, low-wage earners don’t have to remain low-wage earners their whole lives. They can gain the experience and skills needed to move to the next higher-paying job and the next, even in a system that, unfortunately, oursources and hires illegal aliens. I have no patience for people living without hope and constantly complaining and blaming others.

The old v. new media panel discussion I attended was unenlightening. Same old, same old. Terry Jeffrey, Human Events, Nick Schulz of TCSDaily.com, Martha Zoller, radio talk show host and author, and Diana Banister, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs (moderator) talked about how the new media is impacting the old media, the flexibility of new media, etc. They talked about bloggers but had no bloggers on the panel. For whatever reason Glenn Reynolds couldn’t make it, and they didn’t seek a replacement. There was a whole row of bloggers downstairs, but whoever put together the panel didn’t bother.

I enjoyed meeting bloggers, people who read LBC and/or remembered seeing me on C-SPAN and/or attended my blogging presentation. It was a great opportunity professionally and personally.

I spent two days sitting next to Rocco DiPippo of The Autonomist. This guy is one of the most outgoing people I’ve ever met. He told me how one contact led to his contribution to David Horowitz’s new book, The ProFessors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, a FrontPageMag.com column, and other cool things. Rocco said he couldn’t believe that a regular guy like himself would ever meet and mingle with the kind of people he’s always admired.

It would take too long to list all the great people I met, but check the previous posts (Endangered Species and CPAC 2006) for links to bloggers and Technorati for more CPAC blogging and photos.

That’s a wrap…

I’m coming to you live from CPAC. I met a member of an endangered species: a single, straight, black, socially conservative, Christian man (and he reads my blog – excellent). Did I mention that he was single?

I couldn’t resist uploading this boring vanity shot, snapped at the black Republicans booth. They want me to join. I don’t know.

Just took a couple of photos with Glenn Reynolds, who’s here hawking his wares. Met the Instawife and Instadaughter. Nice folks.

I’m on the row with Sean Hackbarth, Jeff Harrell, Tom Bridge, Cam Edwards, Wendy Sullivan, and Bryan Preston.

The only session I will likely attend is the one having to do with blogging: New Media v. Old Media: Bringing Balance or Bias? Michelle Malkin will be here later signing books. So will Wayne Perryman, author of Unfounded Loyalty. Ann Coulter and Star Parker this afternoon. Speaking of constellations, I ran into Star yesterday. Forgot to mention it. So exciting. I love Star Parker.

I’m off to the new media presentation. More photos later. By the way, Michael Barone (who’s very friendly), columnist and McLaughlin Group semi-regular, knows who I am. Unbelievable.

Click the photo of me and Michael Barone to see photos. As of 12:31 p.m. there are no CPAC photos up yet. After lunch.

3:00 p.m.: More photos on Flickr.

I haven’t had a chance to blog much because it’s like a circus! So many sights and sounds. People keep walking up to the table, pointing and saying, “Look at the bloggers.”

I love when people stop by, introduce themselves, and tell me they read my blog all the time (Newsflash!). That’s why I’m not blogging. Well, Michelle Malkin is signing books and will stop by Bloggers Row. I’ll try to get another photo.

One more brag: Tony Snow knows who I am.

4:52 p.m.: OK. Star Parker and me, once again. Click the photo to visit Flickr, where I’ve uploaded new photos, including a shot of the cover of Star’s new book coming out soon.

I met one of my clients, Gregg Jackson of Pundit Review, author of the soon-to-be released book Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies. I’m helping him market the book online. We’re creating a blog to promote it, sending out galleys, trying to get radio and TV interviews…the works. If his book ends up a bestseller, it would great for my our career careers.

Gratuitous comment: People are ragging on Ann Coulter for using the term “raghead.” I think it’s much ado about nothing. How is that, Sean?

I met Stephen Taylor yesterday. He runs The Blogging Tories aggregator, and he’s uber-cool (he said). Stephen and I had a long talk today about forging new bonds between Americans and Canadians, especially bloggers. Conservative Canadian bloggers are having a huge impact on their government, similar to the one we’re having, if I may be so bold, on traditional media.

Other blogger conferences:

• BlogNashville
• GodBlogCon

I am pumped up, let me tell you!

I’m a credentialed blogger at the Conservative Political Action Conference for the second year running. I didn’t announce it before today because I’ve spent the past week nervously preparing for a “Crash Course on Blogging” seminar co-presented at the conference this afternoon with fellow consultant Ken Yarmosh, our second. (See Money, Blogs, DC, and Money) It somehow made me feel less nervous to keep it to myself. If you understand why, good, because I don’t.

Anyway, I’m pumped up because I’ve finally found a way to beat the jitters while speaking in front of a room full of people that works for me: preparation, practice, passion and…out-of-body attitude. I usually do the first, skip the second, don’t show enough of the third, and discovered the fourth only today. This time I prepared what I wanted to say, practiced the speech several times a day for several days until the information was in my head, and focused on my passion for blogging. I performed much better.

But…as I replayed the performance in my head, I discovered a fourth factor, one I wasn’t aware of on the surface: concentrating less on the fact I’m in front of a room full of people and more on what I wanted to convey to the audience. Whenever I suddenly remembered that I was standing in front of a room full of people, the jitters briefly returned. I pushed them back, stepped outside myself again, allowed the passion to come through, and the confidence returned. Yes!

(I was asked to speak at the Blogs4Life conference the night before the event and was only the tiniest bit nervous and quite relaxed at the podium. Interesting.)

I wasn’t too thrilled with my presentation last December, but this time I had out-of-body attitude.

I didn’t blog from CPAC today, but tomorrow I’ll let you in on the action and post pictures. Check out the CPAC posts (with pictures) from last year. It was fun.

THIS was the highlight of the conference, though.

CPAC blogger Rocco DiPippo at The Autonomist has the list of CPAC bloggers. I stopped by Bloggers Row today and saw Sean Hackbarth, Ace of Spades, Mary Katharine Ham, and Pat Hynes again. Met for the first time Jeff Harrell (finally!), Tom Bridge, Cam Edwards, and others I can recall at the moment. (Sorry!)

I’m deliriously tired from thinking about the presentation, offline life, and other stuff. Crashing. Thanks for listening.

In that same vein, not all bloggers at Bloggers Corner were Christians. In fact, I noticed a high libertarian quotient. After the conference, when all was calm, I realized why. Bloggers Corner was sponsored by Tech Central Station (TCS), a right-of-center, free market (read: libertarian) publication. I’m not implying they were playing favorites, but the presence of several libertarians among bloggers at a conservative conference is worth mentioning.

Ryan Sager, a libertarian and fellow CPAC blogger, wrote a piece for TCS about what he calls the “arrogance” of the Republican Party in general and CPAC in particular, titled The Right’s Right. The arrogance we social conservatives show toward liberals isn’t the problem, he says. It’s the arrogance we show toward libertarians like himself that will be our downfall. He mocks:

[T]he arrogance that will prove problematic, ultimately, was that directed at the libertarian-leaning conservatives by the social conservatives. The message in that regard was clear: We Christians can do this alone, y’all who ain’t down with J.C. best be running along.

I believe “J.C.” stands for Jesus Christ. Arrogance isn’t limited to conservatives, I see.

Sager bases these and other claims on Ann Coulter’s stand-up-comedy-routine speech (I do wish she’d cut back on the one-liners) and Phyllis Schlafly’s denunciation of illegal immigration, although neither woman is known as a “religious” conservative. Sager just lumps social conservatives into the same group. The contempt he shows toward the “Religious Right” is palpable, but as a Christian quite used to it, I find it very instructive in this case. Sager’s real problem is with conservatives who openly profess Christ. To Sager, we’re arrogant and intolerant, yet at the same time, he displays his own intolerance toward us. For example, we’re “extremists” who foist our “version of morality” on others. He is talking about people like myself who believe the Bible is truth, the very word of God from which morality derives.

By the way, do you know why conservatives are perennially labeled intolerant? Because we understand the important distinction between acceptance of lifestyles we think are immoral and destructive and allowing people the freedom to self-destruct. For instance, I don’t accept homosexuality as normal, but I’m “tolerant” of homosexuals’ freedom to do whatever they want with whomever they want as long as they’re consenting adults. I have neither the right nor desire to force homosexuals to stop doing anything.

Sager adds: “But precious little libertarianism came from the stage, and what little did was seldom well received…..Now, perhaps CPAC just isn’t any place for libertarians. But that, in itself, is a problem. The conservative movement should be reaching out to people who, well, just aren’t as bothered by ‘Will & Grace’ as some other people are.”

I don’t agree with this at all. Social conservatism, distinct from other forms of conservatism, has a moral component. That is, the agenda I have as a Christian and social conservative is to persuade people that “my side” is better than the other guy’s. Reaching out to people who condone homosexual “marriage” or activity is something I hope never to see social conservatives engaged in. (Notice that I said conservatives, not Republicans. ) I have similar distaste for the party courting the “black vote.” Present your ideas, what you believe, and go from there. If people don’t agree, that’s what the Democratic or Libertarian parties are for.

Sager and I agree one thing: the Republican Party has given up on being the party of small government. To my dismay, George Bush is a big government, not-conservative-enough Republican. It’s times like this I’m glad to be an “Undeclared” independent conservative to the right of Bush.

I didn’t talk much about my faith in Bloggers Corner. We were so busy and distracted by people walking by that the topic didn’t come up. But on the last day of the conference, near the end of the day, the topic did come up. Mike Marshall of Pajama Hadin attended the conference and hung out at our table from time to time. He and I had a great conversation with radio talk show host, Nick Steward, a conservative Christian and up-and-coming politician.

We talked about our faith and how Christ had changed our lives. The space we were assigned was rather tight, so I’m certain the other bloggers heard some or most of the conversation. It felt good to talk about Jesus Christ, if only for a little while. He is the most controversial figure of all time, and his name is bound to make some uncomfortable and others rejoice. God and man at CPAC, indeed.

As alarming as it may seem to some, my higher authority is not myself, but the Creator, the living God who sacrificed his Son to pay for the sins of those he came to save. I believe the Bible contains the truth of God, his nature and plan for the whole world. I cannot and will not separate this belief and compartmentalize it for politically correct notions of “tolerance,” and I won’t turn my back on these principles if “reaching out” to libertarians requires that I do.

Here’s how others responded to Sager:

Erick Erickson (CPAC blogger): It may just be me, but I thought the first “C” in CPAC stood for Conservative. In fact, it does. Sager believes the conservative movement is wholly represented by Schlafly and Coulter. The truth is something other than that, which I think Sager understands, though the Kossacks will be confused….Conservatism is not a monolithic platform of ideas. We do have some conservatives who favor open borders and gay marriage. We do have some who think God needs to be toned down in the public debate. But, the majority of conservatives do believe there is an inherent need for morality in what we do and we are near united that the one moral heritage we can agree on comes from the Bible.”

Can I get an Amen?

Mary Katharine Ham: As a conservative, and a social conservative in most regards, I’m thankful for libertarians. As far as I’m concerned, people who love free markets, guns, and America are welcome in a coalition with me.

Amy Ridenhour: “[I]t is silly to draw excessive conclusions from who speaks at CPAC…Similarly, the CPAC audience is not a demographically pure slice of modern American conservatism — neither are Ann Coulter’s fans.”

Karol Sheinin (CPAC Blogger): ” It’s true that at a meeting of Republicans, you may find a wide range of both conservative and libertarian thought. But, I thought it was safe to assume that if you attend a conference explicitly marked ‘conservative’, you shouldn’t be stunned that that’s exactly what you find.”

Ramesh Ponnuru: “[Sager] says that “conservatism can’t survive by religious extremism and tax cuts alone.” (The ‘religious extremism’ seems to consist of opposition to same-sex marriage.) He wishes that the CPACers had been more libertarian and suggests that the lack of libertarianism ‘threatens to undo Republican gains in the long term.’ I’m certainly all for friendliness and alliance between conservatives and libertarians where possible. But of course it’s not as though libertarians are always respectful of conservatives. Some of them are awfully quick with the ‘religious extremist’ tag, for example. If conservatives brush off libertarians more often — and I’m not sure that they do — that may reflect the simple fact that conservatives have a stronger position within the Republican coalition. If Sager’s got any evidence or even an argument that the party’s political success requires increased libertarianism, I’m sure a lot of people would be interested in hearing it.”

Phillip Klein: “Sager’s description of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference as a place where ‘evolution is a wild hypothesis’ is neither accurate nor constructive. It is unfair to begin an article with a mocking tone toward social conservatives and end by arguing that these same conservatives should reach out to libertarians.”

By the way, I used the word “mock” before I read Klein’s piece. We had the same reaction to Sager’s column, I see.

Side note: In the mail is a review copy of the controversial new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. I will follow-up the review with an interview of author Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Can’t hardly wait…

Update: Dignan shares his thoughts on the “Religious Right.” If you’ve written a similar post or have something to say about the so-called conservative/libertarian divide, trackback and I’ll include your link.

The Regular Stable, Banana Republican, brightMystery…

Hmmm….I was under the impression that Bill at INDC Journal was a “total conservative”: socially, fiscally, and everything in-between. I was wrong.

CPAC Blogger Bryan Preston joins the discussion.

He played a huge role in bringing down Elyse Crystall, a liberal professor (and grown woman) at UNC-Chapel Hill who violated a student’s free speech rights. The student, a conservative Christian, called homosexuality “disgusting,” and Crystall ridiculed him and sent e-mails about him to other students! (This is where the “grown woman” part is relevant.)

The Department of Education said that what Crystall did was harassment and discrimination but chose not to fine the school because it satisfactorily rectified the situation.

Adams e-mailed me a few weeks ago after a Google search led him to posts I’d written about him. After I introduced myself, he said something like, “Oh, yeah!” That happened a lot at CPAC. Some of the folks I wanted to meet had either read my blog or heard of me. Even Michael Medved said, “Oh, yeah.”

“Each February, Black History Month recalls Democrat Harry Truman’s 1948 desegregation of the armed forces and Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson’s signature on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the greatest black legislative victory since Republican Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in 1863. This annual commemoration, however, largely overlooks the many milestones Republicans and blacks have achieved together by overcoming reactionary Democrats….

White supremacists worked club in hand with Democrats for decades…

• August 17, 1937: Republicans opposed Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Supreme Court nominee, U.S. Senator Hugo Black (D., Al.), a former Klansman who defended Klansmen against race-murder charges.
• February 2005: The Democrats’ Klan-coddling today is embodied by KKK alumnus Robert Byrd, West Virginia’s logorrheic U.S. senator and, having served since January 3, 1959, that body’s dean. Thirteen years earlier, Byrd wrote this to the KKK’s Imperial Wizard: “The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.” Byrd led Senate Democrats as late as December 1988. On March 4, 2001, Byrd told Fox News’s Tony Snow: “There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I’m going to use that word.” National Democrats never have arranged a primary challenge against or otherwise pressed this one-time cross-burner to get lost…

Republicans also have supported legislation favorable to blacks, often against intense Democratic headwinds…

• In 1865, Congressional Republicans unanimously backed the 13th Amendment, which made slavery unconstitutional. Among Democrats, 63 percent of senators and 78 percent of House members voted: ‘No.’
• In 1866, 94 percent of GOP senators and 96 percent of GOP House members approved the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing all Americans equal protection of the law. Every congressional Democrat voted: ‘No.’” (Emphasis added)

Read the whole column. Related posts:

Civil Rights Act of 1964
Democratic And Republican Platforms Through The Years
Courting the Black Vote
Two Old Men, Two Different Standards
I Wish I Was In Dixie!
Is Bush Duty-Bound To Reach Out To Black Voters?

BOND’s mission statement, “Rebuilding the Family by Rebuilding the Man,” is especially relevant to the black community, where fatherlessness has reached epidemic proportions. As you can guess, black liberals don’t like him, which means he’s one of my favorite people.

An outspoken critic of liberalism and godlessness in general and Jesse Jackson and the NAACP in particular, Peterson is a Christian and activist who wants to topple so-called black leaders from their perches of privilege. Like me, he believes that the collapse of the family and immorality are the biggest problems in the black community, not racism. Every year he hosts a “National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson,” an idea that should be more widespread, and actively fights to protect marriage.

Peterson contacted me for a radio interview last year, my first, after reading my review of Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America. Read Part I and Part II. Also see this post. Peterson is as plainspoken and to-the-point as I am.

Addendum: On February 24, I’ll see Jesse Peterson again, as well as meet other people I admire, such as actor Joseph C. Phillips and writer Peter Kirsanow. The Heritage Foundation is hosting a symposium.

Townhall.com’s Photo Album

There are public computer terminals in the lobby, but I wasn’t going to tell Wall Street Journal writer John Fund that he couldn’t use the laptop and to go back to the lobby and check his e-mail out there. Starstruck? I think not!

Anyway, so Kevin McCullough, once again, is stirring up trouble (He dragged Michelle Malkin and RedState into it!). He writes:

John Fund highly respected Wall Street Journal columnist did the strangest thing today. He walked right into blogger’s corner (he is not a credentialed blogger). He sat right down at a machine that wasn’t his…it in fact belonged instead to Adam Doverspike of RedState.

He began typing away and when Adam returned — and in fact needed to return to his blogging duties was told by Fund:

“I’ll only be a minute…”

20 minutes later, Adam gave up and left to go get something to drink…as of this typing – as you can see in the picture above — Fund was still using Doverspike’s machine.

Laptop owner Adam Doverspike returned, and Fund said he’d be done in a minute. Well, the minute turned into 10 (20 minutes? I think not!). But so what? I don’t care what Kevin or the other bloggers say. I’m still glad John Fund sat beside me and checked his e-mail.

Update (4:38 p.m.): I need to clarify something in the post. There’s a level of trust at this conference that I haven’t seen in a long time. Laptop computers left in vendor areas, at least in bloggers corner, were safe. Every vendor except one or two is a conservative organization promoting its message. That’s not to say that right-leaning folks haven’t been known to steal. But at least one blogger is always present in bloggers corner with our equipment, and it’s perfectly safe to leave laptops behind while grabbing lunch or interviews. Password-protecting your computer is always wise no matter where you are, however.

By the way, Fund did it again (pictured with Ace), but this time it had nothing to do with me.

Important Update II (6:04 p.m.): It’s comedy! This post is all in fun(d), OK???

Oh…all (most?) of the blogger boys gushed over conservative Indian actress, Namrata Singh Gujral. I suppose she’s somewhat attractive.

She’s also an outspoken critic of radical feminism and almost singlehandedly crushed the Equal Rights Amendment back in the 1970s. She also founded Eagle Forum. Read her fascinating biography.

An excerpt of Schlafly’s latest column, Feminists On The Warpath Get Their Man :

The feminists, who have no sense of humor, have given Americans a big belly laugh, but it’s no laughing matter to the principals involved. The feminists lassoed the president of Harvard University, no less, and have dragged him groveling through the ivy until they wrung from him all they wanted and more.

The most intolerant feminists are on the faculties of elite colleges and universities. The Communists used to severely punish as “deviationists” all those who strayed from the Party line, but the feminists have taken adherence to orthodoxy to new heights.

It didn’t save President Lawrence Summers that he was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury. Summers thought he was chatting off the record with intellectuals who had the maturity to engage in a little light banter combined with a provocative suggestion for academic research or possibly a new Ph.D. dissertation.

He was wrong. To the liberals, some subjects are not only non-debatable, they are non-researchable because they think they already know the answers and they don’t want to be confused by the facts.

The cornerstone of the political correctness that dominates campus culture is radical feminism. And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men’s.

Ann Coulter wrote at least two columns about Schlafly. Read Call Her Mrs.

This is the final day of CPAC. I’ve had a wonderful time here, and meeting the bloggers is the main reason I wanted to come. I’ve never been interested in attending before, mainly because I’m somewhat of a homebody and don’t like going to conferences that last several days. But meeting bloggers and networking with media types was enough to get me out of the house.

Zell Miller, John O’Neill and two other Swift Boat veterans spoke at last night’s banquet. Matt has the audio. Robin Burk took notes during the speeches. Read her post.

I forgot to mention the other bloggers here. It was truly a pleasure meeting “Athena” of Terrorism Unveiled. She has a real name but prefers to remain anonymous. Jim Gerghaty at Kerry Spot introduced himself yesterday. Mike Marshall of Pajamin Hadin is here, too.

Must-see item: Al Franken explodes!

I also met Ray Patnaude, an editor at Tech Central Station and Jonathan Garthwaite, editor of Townhall.com. Every writer should try to meet editors of publications they want to write for. You get to talk about article ideas, what the publication is looking for, what they have too much of, etc. Very valuable information.

Hugh Hewitt was supposed to be here, but I heard his doctor wouldn’t let him fly. We were all disappointed. I think most of us brought copies of BLOG for Hugh to sign, and there was a collective sigh when we heard the news.

I’ll update this post later. Thanks for reading and commenting on the CPAC posts.

Because most events are packed with college students, most bloggers decided to remain on bloggers row. I didn’t realize what a nerd I was until I came here. I met several DC-area bloggers a few months ago, but we didn’t have computers so I didn’t pick up on the nerd factor. But here…oh, man! Surrounded by a bunch of fanatical bloggers and techies for two days straight, all day, has had an effect on me. I’ll blog about that later.

I finally got my interview with Herman Cain. He gave me so much material. His how-I-became-a-conservative story is incredible. I’ll transcribe and post later. I took a picture with him, too. I also posed for photos with Jesse Peterson and Mona Charen. All around, it’s been a great day.

The blogger I’ve been hanging out with the most is Matt Margolis (also the brains behind Blogs for Bush). He wasn’t even born when Ronald Reagan was elected the first time. Can you believe it?

When Michelle Malkin first walked into the book signing area with her beautiful daughter, I walked up to her, and she said, “Hi, La Shawn!” And she hugged me.

Then I saw her little boy (adorable) and met her very nice husband, who also reads my blog. Anyway, so Michelle signed my book and…I don’t remember what happened after that.

Update (2/19): Read what Kevin has to say about Michelle.

Update (4:24 p.m.): The person who came up with the idea of comment/trackback spam should be hunted down, shot, tarred and feathered, and chopped up in a million pieces, and the pieces should be sent to other comment/trackback spammers.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn’t believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

But don’t waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.

They don’t believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

It is not their patriotism – it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter’s pacifism would lead to peace.

They were wrong.