The Czar has received a fair amount of mail supporting his supposition that liberals need to identify with a group or follow someone who is in charge of a group. It is, of course, basic identity politics.

And it bears repeating that this is what blows their minds about conservatives. Conservatives, you see, are made up of all different people of all different backgrounds. We basically are interested in different things, but understand pretty well why someone different from us might want something different. Which, by the way, is why conservatives understand liberal wants pretty darn well.

The opposite is not, of course, true. Liberals rarely understand why conservatives act and think they way they do.

And the press delivers us two examples of this.

First is the New York Times’s Frank Rich, writing an Op-Ed. In the Czar’s day, op-ed was short for “opposite the editor,” which presented a different viewpoint from what the editors believe. The Czar has recently learned that the NYT has redefined this in the last few years to mean “opinion editorial.” Which means that Frank Rich can write the same weird fantasies that the rest of the editors believe, except he actually calls it opinion. Whatever.

Anyway, Mr. Rich has a piece that describes how rich sugar daddies are bankrolling the Tea Party. No, he does not mention that the Tea Party is a grassroots movement that gathered momentum; in his worldview, some powerful individuals must be behind the Tea Party, because that is exactly how the liberal groups work. Folks like George Soros and Warren Buffet, who write massive checks to anyone that supports the leftist game plan. Liberals have them, so the Tea Party must have them, too.

Yes, there are some very wealthy folks helping to finance the Tea Party’s functions. But he fails to ask the obvious question: so what? This invalidates the message? This is different from what the liberals are doing? How so? In other words, Mr. Rich feels he has got something on the Tea Party at long last. He doesn’t know what that is, yet, but he’ll think of something. After all, this probably proves the Tea Party is made up only of rich, white, racist guys. That’s the identity group, right? Meanwhile, the Tea Party has added another million supporters this weekend. How does his readership compare in total numbers? Mmm. Not that well.

Second, we have a few news stories bubbling up about Sarah Palin’s upcoming visit to Iowa. A typical opinion piece like the one in the Washington Post supposes the possibility that Ms. Palin may not announce a run for the presidency in 2012. Why? Has anyone suggested she would, outside of liberal editorial writers?

The Czar would be quite surprised if Sarah Palin announced her plan to run for president in 2012 in Iowa. Or ever, anywhere. She has done little of the necessary prep work to do so, she has proven more effective at stumping for other candidates, and the bottom line is that it is way too early to do so. The election isn’t for two years—why burn through Republican campaign money and promotional oportunities when the President is doing a fine job bolstering support for a GOP president in 2012 for them?

The answer is simple: only the news media is speculating that Palin will announce her intention to run in September, and that’s because they need her to. The lefty J-school newsies are itching to turn on their HatePalinators again. Why? Because she must be the head of the Tea Party. This notion that the Tea Party has no single, dominant, authoritative leader telling its members what to do and think is preposterous to them. If Palin announces her run, why then, they were right all along in suspecting her to be The One. Who else could it be? The science clearly shows that Palin is in charge of the Tea Party.

Or else Glenn Beck is. Somebody must be. Could be him.

It frosts the liberals that conservatives, Tea Partiers or not, think pretty much for themselves. In order to figure out the Tea Party, liberals struggle to pinpoint into which particular demographic Tea Partiers fall—you know, the way all gay people think and act the same way, the way all Hispanics act and think the same way, and the way all 42-year-old Lebanese women all act and think the same way. Maybe Frank Rich is right that they do what their rich, white, racist overlords tell them because that’s who Tea Partiers are.

And as soon as they figure that out, they can be one step closer to figuring out exactly how it is that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck…although it used to be Rush Limbaugh…well, exactly how the three of them share power. Really, who reports to whom there? Gosh, conservatives are so tough to figure out, aren’t they?

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.