How to Write Like a Conservative

[RedEarth]

People say to me, "Ellis, we're tired of earning an honest living. How can we get cushy sinecures writing shameless crap for brand-name Republican propaganda mills like National Review Online, the American Enterprise Institute, or The Weekly Standard?"

Good news: It's easy, it's fun, and the liars of the right need all the help they can get.

Here's how: Take the latest newsworthy example of Republican hypocrisy. "Which one? There are so many!" True. I mean today's report about Senator (and, predictably, "family values" conservative) David Vitter (R. LA), whose name has been found in the records of "DC Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey. ("A right-wing moralist found availing himself of the services of prostitutes?" a breathless nation cries. "We love this! Will there be more?") Patience. Of course there will be more.

......

Here's how. Follow this four-step formula:

1. Start with a contemptuously dismissive statement, not about the person worthy of contempt and dismissal (in this case, Sen. David Vitter, R. LA), but about the left's reasonable reaction to him. Use fancy words to show you're smart. Begin to smother the actual meaning of the event. For example:

The moonbat left is indulging in its usual paroxysms of ecstasy over the revealed imperfections of a Republican official whose most serious crime, apparently, is his public admission of sin.

Note that none of this sentence is true. This is essential. ("His public admission of sin" is not his most serious crime.) Extra points for "apparently," "it would seem," and other terms expressing both lofty amusement at the delusions of the mob, and the vague philosophical befuddlement of a person who, really, has more important things to think about. You don't actually want to comment on all this; the atrocious behavior of the left has forced you to.

2. Turn the topic to Bill Clinton:

Of course their howls of outrage were notably in absence when Bill Clinton's more egregious public peccadilloes were on inconvenient display.

This, too, is essentially untrue. And even if it were true, what is splendid about this sort of comment is that it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. This is what magicians call "misdirection" and what the rest of us call "bullshit." (Also, "notably in absence" is a nice example of stuffy-but-not-quite-correct usage. What this hypothetical right-wing idiot means is "notably absent.")

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellis-weiner/how-to-write-like-a-conse_b_55644.html

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[Turbineguy]

1. This is great!

But I'd like to make $20 million a year and I'm a slow typist. Any ideas on how to take over from Rush Limbaugh?

[Vanje]

2. I put a different conservative spin in my letter re Vitter

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?id=699&letter_id=1294125516

[C_U_L8R]

3. sprinkle on a few "god says so's"