NRA Gives Cool Gift to Sarah Palin: AR-15 Chambered with .50 Caliber "Beowulf" Round

Just so you know -- that is not the famous ginormous .50 cal round you'd see in a .50 cal machine gun, or a .50 cal Barret sniper rifle. It's the same caliber, but not the same huge length of that round (less length = less gunpowder = less velocity = less power).

But still, pretty cool, and enough to get the left pretending they know about guns and then gasping hysterical over Sarah Palin, as usual.

Thanks to Arthur.

Oh: The AR-15 chambered for the .50 cal "Beowulf" round, as seen on Future Weapons.

Bear in mind, though, that every weapon noted on Future Weapons is awesome and the most powerful weapon in the world.

Palin's Appeal... Allah ponders it. She's agreed to work with a new Republican group, the National Council for a New America, to push issues. And gain cachet, of course.

Part of Palin's Appeal... First there are the obvious ones: she blazes through a camera like a superstar, she's charming, she's got most of the conservative credentials, she's daring enough to say things (Drill Baby Drill) that the pantywaist political class won't.

And a big obvious one: The media's attacks on her were so deranged and nasty we became emotionally invested in her, and adopter her as an honorary, fake "member of the family."

Plus charisma. Did I mention that?

But she has a particular kind of charisma. All parties are riven by factional interests. There is no rational, genuine, honest way to appeal to all of those factions simultaneously. Many are inconsistent and incompatible. You can't satisfy the libertarians on social issues while satisfying the social cons.

Or can you?

Some people can satisfy both... somehow. Barack Obama, for example, could satisfy the far left with his Marxist, Chamberlainesque rhetoric while appeasing the moderates not with his actual positions, but with his temperament, which seems moderate, even if his positions are in fact fairly radical. He offers one faction concrete policy and the other side... well, nothing but a soothing manner that appeals to them, at least on a dispositional level.

Palin is kind of like that: There's something brassy, earthy, and, well, undeniably sexual about her that makes her seem like a libertarian. On the other hand, she's got the right positions and right background and right level of piety to satisfy social conservatives.

Which is she really? I'm not altogether sure. Both, neither, a little from Column A and a little from Column B.

That ability to fuse what should be logically incompatible and bring factions which should otherwise be at war with each other under the same standard is a crucial one for any successful politician.

I don't know if Palin can still do that -- the chattering classes and self-annointed elites seem to despise her -- but no one should underestimate how important that talent is.

Romney, as I've noted before, not only lacked this X Factor, he had the opposite problem,an anti-X Factor: Moderates didn't like him because he seemed too socially conservatives and social conservatives branded him a moderate or liberal.

Whereas Palin seemed to be from both camps, Romney seemed to be from neither.

And thus an otherwise excellent politician loses because he lacks that indefinable X Factor.

posted by Ace at 05:33 PM

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