The Real America: Instapundit, Nancy in Nebraska—and Rick the Bartender

I recently wrote that I’m going to be leaving journalism soon. I want to thank people who’ve helped me survive and produce work the last few years. One of them is Glenn Reynolds, otherwise known as Instapundit. Instapundit is a conservative American political blog created by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor. It launched in August 2001 and is now one of the biggest and best sites in the world.

It’s also the place that helped me finish my book. In the summer of 2020 I was about halfway through my book The Devil’s Triangle when the small advance I received ran out. I didn’t mind going back to work at Home Depot fulltime, but there was no way I was ever going to finish the book. Instapundit came to the rescue. He put out an appeal to readers, who boosted the crowdfunding site I was using for donations. People even sent checks to my UPS box. Because of them I was able to finish the book. I won't forget that.

There are people like Instapundit, who aren’t elites, who’ll offer support when all other options have run out. That was the position I found myself in in 2020. I’d been the target of a nasty attempted political hit in 2018 when a woman named Christine Blasey Ford claimed that Brett Kavanaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court, had sexually assaulted her in 1982. Ford claimed that I was in the room where the assault allegedly took place. It was a set-up, an opposition research hit that invoked criminal activity. It was also traumatizing.

In writing a series of articles and then a book about the ordeal, I soon realized that it’s salt-of-the-earth people, not the elite on the right or left, who understand trauma and honor. I was often caught between the political left, which tried to destroy me, and the political right, which lacked the vision to support what I was trying to do in writing about the events of 2018. We need to make sure the communists in the media, entertainment and politics pay for their crimes, conservatives say, and oh by the way, when are you going to stop writing articles about the people in the media, entertainment and politics who tried to crush you? They want results but won’t support people trying to get results.

So while conservative outlets like National Review and Daily Wire ignored my work, I kept collecting scalp after scalp. I revealed that Kamala Harris is the queen of opposition research. I exposed the Facebook connection to Blasey Ford and the hit put on Kavanaugh and me. I confronted a New York Times reporter who apologized to me. I kept moving the ball forward.

I’ll never forget one day in 2018 at the vortex of the madness when I was in my lawyer’s office. I’d just heard from a source that the head of a major conservative media platform was saying in staff meetings that “Kavanaugh isn’t going to make it”—because of me. Mark Judge was just too radioactive and the fact that he had drunken beer, photographed models and liked crime fiction was insurmountable. At the same time my lawyer would play me phone messages from people from around the country. One was from a woman named Nancy from Nebraska. “I just want to tell you I’m praying for Mark Judge,” she said. “It’s awful what they’re doing to him. Tell him we’ve got his back.” So Nancy from Nebraska had more guts for battle than the CEO of Conservatism, Inc.

Then there was Rick the bartender. I’ve known Rick since we were kids. He has a salty mouth, is street smart and very funny. A graduate of an all-boys military high school that he says cemented his habits for life, he calls himself Sgt. Hulka after the drill instructor in the Bill Murray classic Stripes.

Several years ago my mother and Rick’s mother began needing elderly care. My mother went into a memory care facility near where Rick’s mother lived. Rick proposed that I move in with his mom; that way I could help him take care of her and also be close enough to watch out for my own mother. Rick would appear in my room after he got off work and jokingly announce a LOCKERBOX INSPECTION because I’m sloppy and absent-minded and Sgt. Hulka was there to GET THIS PLACE IN ORDER. We laughed about our old close brushes with the law (speeding on minibikes, firecrackers, etc.) and talked for hours about the journey of ushering our mothers through their final years. We relied on each other emotionally and spiritually.

This was the situation I was living in when Christine Blasey Ford and the media pack began hunting me in September 2018. One of the things that killed me was the idea that Rick and his family might get drawn into the nonsense. It was a fear that was confirmed when he and I came home one night to find that a New York Times reporter had appeared at the front door and talked her way into the house to interrogate Rick’s 89-year-old mother about what I was like in high school. Rick was livid at the media. Soon reporters were also blowing up his own phone. As I said, Rick has a sailor’s mouth. Combine that with a guy who has spent 20 years dealing with drunks in bar and you see his low tolerance for nonsense.

Rick’s encounters with reporters usually went like this.

“Hi Rick, this is Phillip Punk from The Washington Post.“

“Fuck you.”

“I understand you have known Mark Judge your entire life.”

“I got nothin’ to say to you.”

“If you just let me help you understand why you should…“

“Fuck you.”

Click.

Then a Post reporter made the mistake of showing up at Rick’s home, the rural Virginia house where he lives with his wife and dogs. Rick was bartending at the time, but a neighbor tipped him off to some loser with a notebook and a ponytail who was snooping around. Rick told the neighbor to feel free to arm himself.

Then Rick’s phone rang. It was the Post reporter. “I just have two things to say to you,” Rick said. “Everybody on my street hates the media, and everybody on my street owns a gun.” At that point the reporter saw the neighbor approaching, locked and loaded. The reporter fled.

After that I went to the bar where Rick works and told him I was going to drive down to the beach for a couple of days. I could go to a motel. Rick reached into his pocket and produced a key to his mother’s beach house. In a lot of movies there’s often a scene where the protagonist is out of options. He goes to an old friend and says, “I can’t really get you involved in this. I just need you to trust me. I need a car and a place to stay for a few days.” The friend replies, “You need a few bucks with that?”

So here’s to Rick, Nancy and Instapundit. They’re in the real America. It's the place where journalists fear to tread.