A recent blog entry-article came to my attention regarding the small issue of the University of Colorado endowing a chair on “Conservative Studies” (no joke!). This is surprising on many fronts, considering the overwhelming liberalism one is apt to encounter at most major universities and colleges, for those of the leftist ideological stripe in those lines of work usually consider conservatives as being either clinically insane or downright too mean-spirited to allow themselves to be as enlightened as the anointed in academia. Being academically-inclined myself, this is an issue that is near and dear to the heart of yours truly, as it is my goal to become an academic in the disciplines of business (one of the few areas of academia where one is apt to encounter a substantial amount of conservatives!).

What makes this development regarding the CS chair all the more surprising, though, is that it is to be endowed at the University of Colorado, one of the most insanely left-wing of already very liberal state universities. For example: at almost any major state college/university you visit or attend, there is plenty of liberalism to go around, albeit in varying degrees from school to school. You will find Purdue to be overall less liberal that, say, Indiana University, though the liberalism there is nothing compared to the leftism found at the University of Michigan, to say nothing of Wisconsin. Furthermore, even though the South is considered to be a very conservative region of the country, you’ll still encounter plenty of liberalism at the Universities of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. But at all of these places, both north and south – with a slight exception to IU – the overall community support for things like the schools’ football teams are staggering. Indeed, at the SEC schools and their home states, their schools’ gridiron squads represent a way of life. 

This is not the case at places such as Colorado U or Cal-Berkeley, where the communities are so left-wing that their ability to see the forest through the trees waved by-by to the hippies long ago. Thus, even though at places like Michigan, the liberal communities in Ann Arbor are gung-ho for the Wolverines, at Colorado U, the arch-liberal communities in Boulder end up being downright hostile toward the Buffaloes. Same thing goes for the whacko Berkeley communities and their hostility towards the Cal Golden Bears. The reason for such hostility can vary considerably, but it all boils down to either the logical extreme of associating the football teams with the military industrial complex – one of the favorite bogeymen of the left and even some on the extreme right – or that a manly sport like football represents the oppressive patriarchy of Western society – as if Eastern cultures and African tribal “societies “ are that much more feminized!

To sum things up, though, I find myself agreeing with the author’s piece regarding the endowment of the “Conservative Studies” chair at CU. Yes, the suffocating liberalism at CU and other colleges is an important issue because of the possibility of indoctrinating generations of youth into worshipping false gods, but this is not the way to address it. Rather, my solution would be an economic approach. Stop donating money to the schools, or at least to the liberal arts schools where much of this insane leftism originates. Business schools, engineering schools, medical schools and computer schools to the society in general and students in particular important services of providing training for marketable skills. As much as I love liberal arts studies, that which one is apt to learn there is not nearly as marketable as coming up with a formula for a plastic to be put into a car dashboard or loading critical software onto a business’ mainframe. Hence, donating money to such technical schools is worthy. Sending money to liberal arts schools, however, encourages leftism to continue to fester. If you want ideological reform and want school administrators to heed your [our] concerns, then derail the money train. There is no sound that will grab the ear of school administrators like the sound of closed wallets.

            Dr. Thomas Sowell, as an aside in his latest column, makes a point identical to one of mine in my piece on the Millenial Generation. Of course, it always sounds better coming from Dr. Sowell! Nevertheless, the point remains most valid. Why does Barack Obama have such strong support from young people? The same reason applies to why the authors of the book “Millenial Makeover” claim that the Millenials are liberal by a 2:1 margin: young is another name for inexperience, and the thrust of my previous piece was that Millenials’ alleged liberalism can be self-correcting over time with real-world experience.

On that note, it is worth encouraging all who are willing to listen not to underestimate the value of experience and the good judgment that eventually comes with it. Those on the left are apt to carp at those of us on the right because we admonish Obama for his questionable associations, first with the whacko pastor Jeremiah Wright, later with the controversial (dare I say ‘white-hating’?) priest Michael Pfleger, and now we have found out he is friends with the leader of The Weathermen terrorists, a far-far-far left radical group that actually did kill innocent people. Lest any liberals try to play the ‘guilt-by-association’ card, this much is worth noting.

Electing somebody to the office of president is like drafting a quarterback. Alright, so it is not entirely like picking a QB for one’s team, but there are enough similarities to get this point across. Why do some NFL quarterbacks excel at their position, while others struggle? The one trait that all successful QBs in the pros (the Manning Brothers, Brady, Brees, Hasselbeck, etc.) have is the ability to make good decisions. In other words, it all comes down to judgment. Quarterbacks who have struggled at that level (Daunte Culpepper comes to mind)have shown a profound lack of good judgment.

Back to Obama; as trite as it is to say, a man is known by the company he keeps. The people with whom we choose to closely associate reflect what kind of judgment we have. Rev. Wright has been the leading male figure in Obama’s life for two decades, and Obama kicked off his state senate campaign in the mid-‘90s in the home of William Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn. As Hugh Hewitt reminds us, this shows that Obama is a man of poor judgment, hence unfit to be President of the United States on this basis alone, forget the fact that he is the most hard-left candidate ever to run for the Oval Office.

“Have Uncle Sam pay for health care? Hey, that's like, neat. But they also say that Millennials favor systems that give them lots of choices. They want to mouse-click on the option they prefer. This, of course, is in conflict or at least tension with systems in which government makes choices for you. If young voters' positive disposition to government programs gives Democrats an opening, their preference for choices gives Republicans one, too.”

   That many CIA and State Department officials and lackies alike have also worked to undercut President Bush in his own administration comes as no surprise to anybody in the political cognoscenti. After all, as Barone himself points out:

“Civilian and military, those who have been undercutting administration policy do so in the belief that their views are more in the nation's interests than the conclusion of the Texas cowboy whom the voters somehow elected president. State and CIA are filled with professionals educated in elite universities dominated by the left and, while not as wacky as their professors, have come away with the default assumption that liberals are always right.”

   With that sort of default assumption in mind, it certainly explains the lack of American Exceptionalism in these crucial divisions of the Executive Branch. What is truly disturbing, however, is that there seems to be a similar trend (minus the lack if AE, thankfully) afoot in the military:

“Many military officers, who increasingly have graduate degrees from such universities, seem to have imbibed similar habits of mind.”

   Nor does the concern end there. Barone points out another tendency where high-ranking officers assigned to a world region, like diplomats, end up “going native,” which explains Fallon’s insistence on Israel caving in to Palestinian demands at every turn. I would welcome solutions to this “native” problem from someone with deeper foreign policy insight, say, Frank Gaffney or Oliver North (whose own piece on Fallon can be found here).  On the bright side of things, it does seem as though Sec. Robert Gates did his part in outing this renegade.

   As an aside, it has been speculated that one reason for Fallon’s resignation, timed right after a puff piece was written on him in Esquire magazine, was to position him as a possible Veep candidate for either Hillary or Obama. Such a development would not surprise yours truly – a former military officer on the ticket could theoretically help boost the foreign policy credentials of either Dem candidate (i.e., not looking so soft on defense). Then again, ask Gen. Wes Clark how well that worked in the party of defeat and retreat.

            An interesting bit of scientific and geographic insight the Sen. Hutchison shares is the nature of Venezuelan oil. The reason that Saudi oil is so popular is that, in addition to it being very plentiful, it is also some of the easiest oil to refine into gasoline. Not so with the South American stuff, which has a large tar content and even larger sulfur content, and is this more difficult – and expansive – to refine into gas than most oil found elsewhere. Most of the refineries that are set up for this are along the U.S. Gulf Coast, meaning that, as the Senator from the Lone Star State herself points out, “Mr. Chavez needs us more than we need him.”

     I’ve long admired Michael Medved as a radio host and as a commentator in general. His grasp of American history leaves even yours truly amazed – and I teach it as part of my job! During the early part of the Republican presidential primaries, though, I was a bit put off by his unabashed support for McCain while I and lots of other party activists were fervently in favor of Mitt Romney. Medved, however, clearly has been on the winning side, considering that his man became our nominee for the White House. But it’s not over yet for us Romney fans, as our man Mitt is clearly the best choice for the VP slot, and this time, Michael backs us up. Let’s hope he’s as right this time as he was in predicting who would win the bigger nomination.  Naturally, Hugh Hewitt weighs in on this growing movement as well, listing some additional benefits of adding Romney to the ticket.  At this rate, all this is potentially very good news for us Romney fans:  OurManMitt could have new life in his campaign yet! 

 This is an excellent, straight-forward piece that explains to conservatives why we must check whatever disagreements we’ve had with McCain at the voting poll door. Goodness knows there have been times in the recent past where we right-wingers have barely been able to abide the senior senator from Arizona.  But let's face it; the War on Terror, judges, Bush’s tax cuts, and controlling the spending are too crucial of issues to be given up in a temporary fit of pique.

           Michael Barone has an important piece today regarding the ’08 electoral map. His bottom-line advice: don’t take any state for granted this time around, and don’t write off states we have lost in 2000 and ’04. Whatever changes that are in store for the map are not attributable to paradigm shifts in the electorate per se, rather, Barone pins them on different characteristics in the two major candidates. 

New voters are up for grabs, and there are aspects of McCain and Obama that appeal to different young demographics. More mature voters (and I use that term loosely) that were turned off by President Bush’s religiosity and Texas swagger – not that I was, mind you! – might be apt to give McCain a more serious look.

Some states, I think, can continue to be taken for granted, with Indiana being one of them. It doesn’t matter whom the GOP nominates; Indiana has gone for the Republican candidate since 1964. I would also not expect the Mountain and Great Plains states to go “blue” anytime soon, not with electorates that are thoroughly repulsed by the Dems’ cultural liberalism. Ditto for the Deep South, but some states in that approximate region concern me, namely Kentucky, Arkansas and West Virginia. Florida we can keep in the fold with someone like McCain, who appeals to many demographics in that state.

As Obama is 95 percent likely at this point to get the Democrat nomination, we can probably write off Illinois, but perhaps a state like Pennsylvania is back in play. Bush campaigned hard in the Keystone State in both 2000 as well as 2004, but lost both times; perhaps McCain can finally help that state turn the corner. If that is so, then it could off set the possible loss of Ohio, assuming that we lose the Buckeye State this time around. Whatever the case may be, Barone is spot-on in recommending that the folks on the Straight Talk Express do some serious polling in as many states as possible so we can attempt to figure out the shifting patterns of colors on the map come November.

To be sure, this all could be classic over-thinking. In another sense, if McCain can put together a credibly conservative platform for ’08, then he should have the upper hand. We have not elected a self-professed liberal to the presidency since 1964, which is why Obama runs away from that word every time he hears it. Sooner or later, enough people will read his books to find out that he cannot be honest with the people about where he truly stands. If so, then that alone could keep enough states “red” to keep the White House in GOP hands.

         As mentioned in my tribute entry on the late, great, Bill Buckley, the tributes continue to roll in. The best of the latest crop is none other than Jonah Goldberg’s, who assumed the role of “Editor-at-Large” of National Review after Buckley stepped down. Goldberg does an outstanding job of chronicling he historical trends of collectivism that Buckley sought to put a stop to starting in the 1950s, trends which I only hinted at in my piece. Also, I referred to Buckley as someone who “assumed the role of Atlas…holding up the sky.” After reading Goldberg’s tribute, I have concluded that perhaps that was an erroneous metaphor; read the piece, and the reader will understand why.

            The tribute pieces on the late, great William F. Buckley, Jr., have already trickled in, but they are a mere prelude to the Niagara-like waterfall of praise that is surely to come over the next few days. As a latecomer to understanding just how great, influential, and indeed essential to the modern conservative movement Buckley is/was, I find myself with little ability to detract from, let alone add to, the insights and praises that will be unearthed by the big-name conservative cognoscenti (Limbaugh, Coulter, Sowell, etc.).

            What I can do, however, is briefly remind those of us in the under-30 crowd just how important Buckley was to giving conservatism credibility. We 20-somethings have had it easy, as far as conservatives go. We were toddlers or newborns when Reagan was elected President in 1980. Rush Limbaugh started broadcasting his radio talk show and the Berlin Wall fell while we were in grade school. We came of age professionally with Fox News on cable TV, and Bush-43 changing a nation’s paradigm on dealing with international terrorism. It can easily be argued that none of that would have been possible without Bill Buckley paving the way.

            Try being a conservative prior to 1980, before enough people were sufficiently radicalized against big government that even the drive-by media – then a much more influential voice for liberalism – could not hold up the waters to prevent the flood from soaking their agenda. As early as the 1950s, Buckley took on a role similar to that of Atlas holding up the sky, except in this case, he became the cornerstone of a nascent ideological movement created as a response to the fallout of Big Brother government ushered in by FDR.

            Republicans were late-comers to understanding the importance of being more hard-lined of social issues (Reagan helped wipe out that weakness), largely because it was not necessary to be conservative on social issues prior to the 1960s, when myriads of those sorts of problems suddenly erupted all over society. A similar thing can be said about conservatism as a whole; prior to the Great Depression, the ideas that are the basis for the conservative ideology today were merely mainstream American ideas back then. What would be classified as liberals today were justifiably ostracized by mainstream society as Trotskyites, confined to a few underground coffeehouses in Manhattan. 

            The big problem for America emerged with FDR, who basically took advantage of many people’s economic fears to become a liberal quasi-dictator. Big government is not the only reason why leftists worship at Franklin Roosevelt’s altar to this day – he was the only politician who remotely succeeded in living out a liberal’s dictatorial fantasy. These trends for continued growth in government seemed unstoppable 20 years after Franklin Roosevelt was first inaugurated into the White House. It was in this spirit that Buckley, who in 1955 founded National Review -- arguably to this day the most influential magazine on conservative thought -- announced its purpose with an editorial that included what must be the most oft-quoted statement any magazine has ever made about itself: "It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."

            Buckley had already created a stir among the liberal establishment when he wrote God and Man at Yale in 1951, a scathing critique of the secular-leftist agenda that was slowly seeping into the hallowed halls of his alma mater. Liberals, of course, have inclined themselves to react in the same manner to sentiments that they deem to be heresy as Pavlov’s dog was trained to respond to certain sounds. Ann Coulter, in her tribute piece on Buckley, gives a nice, concise list of the way many liberals reacted to his ground-breaking book. This book, of course, was hardly a drop in the proverbial bucket of what was to come. His literary achievements alone would make 99 percent of the most productive of people seem like underachievers. In Jeff Jacoby’s first tribute piece written on the occasion of Buckley stepping down from leading NR, the Boston Globe columnist gives us a brief list of his body of work that includes “35 nonfiction books, 15 books of fiction, 79 book reviews, 56 introductions or forewords to books written by others, 227 obituary essays, 800-plus editorials or other articles in National Review, 350 articles in periodicals other than National Review, and more than 4,000 newspaper columns at the rate of two or three a week.” Can I take a breath now?

            If you think that his achievements were restricted to print media, think again. For over 30 years, he hosted his own debate show “Firing Line,” often skewering his liberal guests with his cool, calm, hyper-intellectual demeanor and his absolutely wicked sense of humor. His erudite New England-accented pronunciation of “Reverend Jackson,” when the notorious race hustler appeared on his show, became the basis and inspiration for Rush Limbaugh’s satirical quips of Jackson’s name and title on his radio show today. When, years earlier, Robert F. Kennedy was asked why he refused to appear on "Firing Line," he replied: "Why does baloney reject the meat grinder?" A great interchange that demonstrates Buckley’s intellectual prowess was in 1969 when he took on MIT’s very own America-hater, Noam (“gnome?”) Chomsky. (Part Two on YouTube can be found here.)

            Indeed, Buckley was the leading conservative commentator for three decades, in both print and on television. In the final few days leading up to the presidential election of 1968, ABC televised a brief, two-installment opposing-point-of-view special, where the two sides argued the merits of the candidates and the ramifications of the election for the country (part one and part two). Gore Vidal provided the liberal point of view, while it came as no surprise that Buckley provided the conservative perspective.

            The two almost came to blows when debating on ABC at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago earlier that year. At one point, Vidal, the America-hating homosexual leftist (a pervert on both counts!), called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi,” and Buckley’s response was priceless. "Now listen, you qu--r. Stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I'll sock you in your goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." Don’t believe me? That have it one YouTube as well – enjoy!

            Among the many legacies we can also thank Buckley for was giving conservatism credibility by not only marginalizing the kooks, the John Birchers, and the nativists, but also bringing out the optimistic qualities of the ideology for all to see and appreciate. Conservatism, after all, is rooted in optimism – optimism that people can be successful through their own talents and ambitions, without government having to prop them up – or, more often, hindering them -- at every step of the way; optimism that people are better at solutions to problems than government, and optimism that people, through more local control, can decide how to better handle their own affairs than faceless bureaucrats in Washington. Make no mistake about it, without Buckley, there would have been no Reagan.

            The links in this blog entry to other tribute columns will make the reader aware of other things, such as him running for mayor of New York City, his love of sailing (he sailed both the Atlantic as well as the Pacific), and his excellent musicianship. Jeff Jacoby, in his second tribute piece points out how Buckley proved a person could be erudite and down-to-earth at the same time. Ann Coulter recalls how he skewered the prosecution where he was the defendant at a trial. One thing that I learned belatedly was that he was adept at playing the harpsichord. As a fan of Baroque music (particularly Bach), it is worth noting that that instrument was a hallmark of that epoch, and learning this bit of knowledge of the late Buckley will leave yours truly pondering for a long time on what, if any Bach concerti he might have enjoyed playing. Did anybody, for example, ever witness him playing Bach’s Brandenburg No. 5, or perhaps Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in E Major (BWV 1053) at one of his many high-brow parties? Only time and research will tell.

            Evidence of his long-standing celebrity status have appeared over the years in numerous ways. In Disney’s animated feature film Aladdin, the Genie character, voiced by Robin Williams, gives many celebrity impersonations, with one being an obvious nod to Buckley when noting of the “quid-pro-quos” as part of the deal of service to his new master.

            After he stepped down from being “Editor at Large” of National Review in 2004 at age 78, he still churned out the occasional column, with a very recent example being his piece where he recalled Norman Mailer right after the iconoclastic author’s demise. Indeed, while he may have yelled “Stop” to history some 50 years ago, nothing seemed to stop the Godfather of American conservatism even in retirement, and nothing today seems to stop the movement he created, something for which we all can be eternally grateful.

            Well, surprise, surprise! It turns out that at an office for Barack Obama’s campaign, volunteers prominently display a Cuban flag with the image of Che Guevara emblazoned on it. What’s truly surprising about this, though, is that this office is in Houston. One of the reasons that the Lone Star State is the best damn state in the country is that folks don’t take too kindly communists down there (any commies remaining in Texas have been permanently laid siege to in Austin); get it together, Texas!

            Seriously, though; Barack’s volunteers in this office see no problem with glorifying a mass-murdering thug, and B. Hussein Obama is reticent to denounce it in the manner that JFK would without hesitation. What gives? It is actually quite simple: liberal democrats love communists, and Obama and his ilk are very much ideologically akin to this party of totalitarianism, mass-murder and enslavement. Liberal Democrats were the ones who had no problem with Stalin’s spies honeycombing our State and Justice departments as far as the late 1930s. Liberal Democrats were the ones that helped oust Joe McCarthy from the Senate after he exposed the aforementioned commies in our midst. Liberal Democrats were the ones who opposed us fighting the communists in Vietnam, and after they forced us to retreat, refused to allow President Gerald Ford to grant aid to the besieged South Vietnamese forces. 

These same liberal Democrats also prevented Ford from using the CIA to prevent a communist takeover in Angola, and were totally asleep at the switch when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed 2 million of their fellow countrymen in Cambodia. Liberal Democrats also opposed Reagan at every turn, even going to such lengths as to pass the Boland Amendment in 1984 so as to prevent Reagan from helping to defeat the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua (fortunately for us, Reagan’s team members, including the great American patriot Lt. Col. Oliver North, USMC, were not about to let Central America turn ‘Red’ on their watch).

            That same year, Sen. Ted [hiccup] Kennedy (D-Mass.) actually contacted Yuri Andropov – the leader of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, as in, our main enemy at that time! – asking him to badmouth our president! Pick up a copy of Ann Coulter’s Treason to find out just how deep-seeded the Dem’s love affair is with the Soviets, with Castro and with other enemies of America. This book further proves that Barack Obama is not the only Democrat in the Senate who is one step away from donning a Mao beret – something to consider when we enter the polls in early November of this year.

            Judging by the lower turnout of Republican voters than Democrat voters in state-by-state primaries, it would seem that the GOP and its followers are still shell-shocked by the defeat the voters handed them in November of 2006.  John Podhoretz undertakes the most methodical chronicling that I have read to date regarding the fall of Republican fortunes.  His basic premise is two-pronged.  One is, in order to understand the decline in party morale, we have to properly ascertain the root cause.  In this case, after going through a litany of Republican perfidy to the conservative base regarding an explosion in earmarks and pork barreling after 1998, and the corruption scandals which all erupted simultaneously in ’06 (which only affected six out of the 229 House GOP members, and that is if you include Tom DeLay), he points out what really soured voters’ views of Republican leadership, that being the mismanagement of the war in Iraq.

            So should there be reason for optimism, then?  Perhaps, considering that the troop surge has led to increased success in the region, combined with the Iraqi public’s increasing distaste for terror attacks against them, thus pushing the Sunnis into the political process.  Assuming this strong trend in good news from Iraq continues through November, Podhoretz contends that the Democrats will be in an uncomfortable position, thus implying reason for considerable optimism for us GOP voters.  It is time for us to wake up from our funk, roll up our sleeves, and go to work.

       Most of us ‘movement’ conservatives shuddered at the very idea of Sen. John McCain winning the GOP nomination for President.  In hindsight, perhaps we did ourselves no favors by thinking that we put that problem to bed after the 2000 primary, not anticipating a sequel on steroids.  Oops!

       All kidding aside, the irony – and the very thing that sticks in the craw of the GOP base – of McCain’s ascendancy in the party primary is that he violated most standard primary protocols to get where he is right now.  Conventional wisdom has it that in the primary, you are to play to your base in order to get the nomination; your base will then theoretically forgive you if you feel you have to moderate your stance on some positions so as to appeal to some mealy-mouthed moderates in the general election.

       And therein lies the point of consternation with McCain and the base.  He made practically zero effort to address their (our) perceived needs during the primary until the C-PAC convention this past Friday.  Until now, he has gotten by on appealing to “moderates” and “liberals” within the party, as well as conservatives not attuned to the messages from the blogosphere and talk radio.  One thing that we conservatives particularly despised was his blatant refusal to drill in ANWR during a Republican debate at the Reagan Library.  The issue about tapping more sources for oil at home is something we Republicans have been fighting hard for since the beginning of this decade.

       Up until now, it would seem that McCain’s prohibitive favorite status at winning the Republican nomination is a huge cloud over the large, conservative wing of the party.  Yet every cloud has its silver lining, and this one shines especially brightly.  McCain is no fool, though he might act like one on occasions (e.g., McCain-Feingold, The Gang of 14, etc.).  He realizes that he has essentially painted himself into a corner, one that he cannot get out of without now making strong efforts to win over the conservative base.  Simply put, he needs our help to win the big prize come November, and he knows it.

       Credit him for trying to fix his self-inflicted dilemma.  One key name he has brought onto his team roster is Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General for Dubya, and a very reliable conservative who is quite adept at giving the presumptive nominee wise counsel in selecting the right judges – both literally and figuratively! – for the Federal bench.  Let us not forget the impending vacancies at SCOTUS.  Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 this year; he’s not long for this world, much less the court.  Ruth Bader (Buzzy) Ginsberg is 74 this year, and reportedly not in the best of health when compared to the other justices.  With just one constructionist replacement in the activist wing of the Supreme Court, we will have a rock-ribbed conservative majority that will quell any and all attempts at judges legislating from the bench.  Perhaps it is therefore no surprise that Miguel Estrada, the former embattled nominee to the DC Circuit Court, endorsed McCain this past week.

       Then there’s the war (remember that little issue?).  One of McCain’s points of appeal to conservatives from the get-go was the he would not hesitate to use all available and necessary force to defeat the likes of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the thugs running Syria, or any other enemy to the United States.  The bottom line is, the next four years after Bush-43 are going to be too critical to be left to Hillary or Obama to mess up.  McCain himself is probably well aware of this, but it doesn’t dispel the fact that he needs us to help him stave off the Dems from the White House.  We can keep him honest with some conservatives starting to embrace him, while others play hard-to-get, as blogger Matt Lewis explains.