I was thinking about blogging about this; but I wanted to wait until there was more information. I had first heard about this from Ed Morrissey on Twitter yesterday. Ed is a straight up guy and will tell the truth, no matter if it hurts him or not. Because of this, I highly admire the guy.
I was not sure how bad things were out at CPAC west, until Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit posted this video:
But, I figured that this about par for the course; Ziegler was an overly aggressive media type, which has gotten him in trouble before. But then I saw the posting by Ed over at HotAir, Now keep in mind what I wrote about Ed a minute ago about his honesty:
The nadir of the conference for myself personally, as well as some of my colleagues on Blogger Row, was the panel that featured many of us on the impact of New Media. The inclusion of one panelist, unknown to any of us, had some of us stumped; it turned out to be a sponsor who apparently demanded time on the panel, even though he runs a fax-blasting service. He proceeded to call me “rude” for expressing my opinion on this blog of the presentation of impeachment for “criticizing my hosts,” which proved an immediate buzz-killer for an audience that had just built energy from Stephen Kruiser’s hilarious take on how easy it was to get Twitter (“It’s just typing,” Kruiser told the audience.) The same sponsor then proceeded to trash blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and every part of New Media with the exception of …. fax blasting, leaving most of us wondering why he was considered for a contribution on New Media and its potential.
The Western CPAC event is not officially part of the traditional CPAC convention, but the ACU is listed as one of its sponsors, and ACU chair David Keene was in attendance in the entire time. In fact, our friend John Ziegler attended for the express purpose of getting Keene to answer for his pay-for-play shenanigans with FedEx earlier this year as well as Keene’s attacks on Sarah Palin. The situation turned ugly, as Mediaite reports; Western CPAC ejected Ziegler after he followed Keene into the speaking hall, which followed Keene calling Ziegler an “asshole” and saying he wanted to punch Ziegler.
[….]
This comes as a piece with the New Media panel and the fringe nature of some of the sponsors. While I had several great conversations with Floyd Brown and believe him to be genuine about his pursuit of impeachment, it was made clear to me by several sources at the conference that they included it primarily as a fund-raising mechanism instead of a serious argument. The general theme of the conference appeared to be mainly a sales job for the personal benefit of the sponsors, and not the promotion of real conservative ideas. And quite frankly, after spending several hundred dollars to attend an event just to be told that dissent is “the heighth of rudeness” and that bloggers should shut up and defer to their movement elders was just a little too much too take.
I won’t return to events sponsored by the same organizations in the future. The big problem with the conservative movement has been its self-appointed leaders telling others to shut up and follow in lockstep, and I don’t think any so-called movement leaders taking that approach have the first foggy clue about what the New Media and Tax Parties mean.
At this point, I thought okay, the event was run by some kooks and Zeigler got thrown out. But what got me, was WHY he was tossed out. You can go here and read Zeigler’s account of him getting tossed out, but these videos, they speak for themselves:
Okay, let me first say; Yes, Zeigler is an aggressive media guy. But since when is questioning someone grounds for tossing someone out of a conference? Someone that was booked and paid for a booth to sell his DVD? This my friends is the epitome of lame.
I’ll let Ed Morrissey pick it up from here:
From my perspective, the only thing John did that crossed any kind of line was when he followed Keene into the speaking hall — where Keene was obviously trying to run away — and he had to be asked to stop repeatedly to keep from disrupting one of the panels. Instead of just dropping it, the event organizers escalated the problem by first kicking John off of his panel and then making the entire issue public when John had already agreed to leave — an agreement in which I was involved, for full disclosure, and which fell apart while I got sick in the hotel (I had some problems with my diabetes medication this weekend). The final act of this little drama was, from my perspective, completely avoidable by Western CPAC’s brain trust.
I agree, I also note that Ed and many other Conservative Bloggers say that they will not be returning to CPAC and will not be involved with anything sponsor and/or promoted by the American Conservative Union. I do not blame them at all. I had respected that group and thought that they were one of groups with some integrity. It appears that I was quite wrong. As Ed said, it is time for new leadership and a new vision for the G.O.P. and for the Conservative movement as a whole. I agree with this wholeheartedly. While I do not know if Sarah Palin is going to be or should be a part of that; but I do know that there is change needed, I mean writing nasty articles about Sarah Palin and then donating to Arline Spector? Especially after he says stuff like this? Something is deathly wrong with the Conservative movement.
As a history buff and someone who’s quite familiar with political history. I see an interesting similarity between what is happening here and the climate in the Democratic Party around the time of the Vietnam War, say around 1968. What I am talking about is the extreme disconnect between the beltway Conservative leadership and movement leaders; and that of the grassroots. In 1968, the grassroots wanted the Vietnam war ended, like right then. The Democratic Leadership felt the war necessary to promote peace. Toss in the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and what you had was a mess. That mess, as it were, went on to almost destroy the Democratic Party; and the Democrats were never able to regain the White House till after the Nixon debacle.
Where this fits in with the Conservative movement is this; you have a obvious disconnect between the Beltway Conservative leadership and the Grassroots or as it now called; The New Media “Netroots” of the Conservative movement. You have several movements within the Conservative Grassroots, or Netroots; you have the 9/12 bunch, the Smart Girl Politics bunch, you have the Top Conservatives on Twitter bunch, you have your libertarians; who believe that the Republican Party is now Democratic Party lite and that the Government is evil. You have your Ron Paul crowd, who feel like they were stiffed by the Republican Party leadership and rightly so. There is just no one clear leader or tent. There are several tents, and they all despise one another.
What needs to happen at this point is this; there needs to be a leader, someone that can unite ALL of these tents together under one big tent. Some who can get everyone who is Vis-à-vis Conservative and get them to come together as a movement; sort of like what Reagan did. I mean, Reagan was able to bring together Libertarians; well, some of them anyhow, Social and Fiscal Conservatives, Military people, and Christian Conservatives.
The question is; who will do this? That is something that the Conservative movement and the Republican Party needs to work out —– and very, very soon.
Others: Atlas Shrugs and The Washington Independent