Mr. Huckabee attributes his support to the fact he is a “hardworking, consistent conservative with some authenticity about those convictions.” He is certainly qualified for national office, having served nearly 11 years as a chief executive. I have known and liked him for years; on the stump he often tells the story of how we first met outside his boarded-up office in the state Capitol, which had been sealed by Arkansas Democrats who refused to accept he had won an upset election for lieutenant governor in 1993. But I also know he is not the “consistent conservative” he now claims to be.
Nor am I alone. Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office, was once “his No. 1 fan.” She was bitterly disappointed with his record. “He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal,” she says. “Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but don’t be surprised if he takes a completely different turn in office.”
I don’t have too much of a problem with the abortion issue, but the tax thing disturbs me mightily and I’ll tell you why: Because it’s 2007. It is logically offensive to continue debating supply side economics. Show me three politicians who want to raise revenue by increasing taxes, and I’ll show you a liar, a liar, and another liar.
That’s not a statement of opinion, it’s a matter of fact.
Things don’t look good for the Huck…are you listening, Buck?
You have the floor, Sen. Barack Obama. I am ready for my explanation. What was going on at the moment the shutter clicked, that everyone in view has their right hand extended reverently over their hearts, and you’re just standing there like some lowbrow boob?
What, they had a false start and you were the only one smart enough to figure out the music wasn’t playing yet?
Maybe that’s it, or maybe you were the one slow on the uptake. Or maybe…maybe…you assumed the proper position, and microscopic aliens conspired to yank your hand down off your chest and interlace your fingers together. Or maybe it’s a Photoshop job. Or…I dunno. Fill in your own excuse. But make it good.
Make it good, or your candidacy is finished. Or it ought to be.
I mean, indulge for me this thought exercise, will you. There’s this foreign country. The foreign country is having an election next year, and there’s no less than fifteen candidates for that high office. Prime Minister or something. The foreign country has a ceremony in which all are called upon to salute that country’s flag, and one of the candidates is so devoid of consideration and good manners, that he stands there like a poorly-bred rude little brat…
…and he’s allowed to continue to run.
What’s the very best thing you can think about that country, that they would put up with this? What’s the very highest level of esteem in which you could hold them? Not real high, huh. Well here we have a situation in which America is that other country.
So my logic is quite simple…solid…and sound. Obama drops out now.
This very instant.
Or else, next time you have some asinine international “poll” talking about how those foreigners don’t hold the US of A in high regard — don’t come crying to me about it. Don’t you dare come snivelling my way about it. Blame Obama.
What a churlish ass.
Update 10/23/07: Welcome Pajamas Media readers, pleased to have ya.
Update 10/24/07: Found video. They’re really butchering the hell outta the national anthem. Obama did applaud at the end, but went the better part of a minute with his hands down like that. There are an awful lot of people with their hands over their hearts, he could have been facing away from all of them. So one possible excuse, although far from likely, is that he’s simply unacquainted with the custom.
Each reader may make up his or her own mind as to whether or not that would be Presidential material. I’ve made up mine.
Just remember. Outside of that one possibility, that extremely remote, fantastical possibility, there’s only one other. Obama has a core constituency whose support will waiver if he’s caught saluting. That would mean we’ve got a lot of people voting in this country — a lot of people, dozens of millions — spitting on the flag. And it goes well beyond the “I love my country but I fear my government” or “I respect my country but I loathe what it stands for lately” stuff. These are people who will distrust and despise you if they catch you saluting the flag. And they must be here, walking around, voting, if politicians are afraid of ’em.
I mean, I just gotta believe Obama knows something I don’t. So if those people exist, is it alright for me to question their patriotism yet?
Speaking of Hillary’s fugitive high-price fund raiser, he’s going to be handed over to authorities as soon as his health improves…
…sources say.
The only thing is, I’m not sure why he’s sick. Or even if he is. And the people who do know, aren’t allowed to tell me, because…well…they just say they aren’t allowed to tell me.
Samantha Moe, spokeswoman for St. Mary’s Hospital, said Hsu remained in fair condition. She said she could release no other information.
Hospital officials have declined to say what ails Hsu, or why Amtrak officials called the local fire department on Thursday to report a passenger had become ill on the California Zephyr. Police did not even go to the train station on the call.
Later that day, however, FBI officials in San Francisco called St. Mary’s and said a patient there was wanted on federal fugitive charges. The FBI did not say how they knew he had been hospitalized.
You know, it seems to me the public has enough of an interest in being assured a fugitive is going to be brought to justice, given that said fugitive has enough well-connected friends and other resources that he can stay on the lam for sixteen years. But that’s leaving aside the salient point that this particular fugitive is ready, willing, able, and would piss rusty nails like a racehorse to affect the outcome of our senatorial and presidential elections.
And he’s got some great timing when it comes to contracting mysterious unnamed illnesses. Maybe this is where some intrepid, hard-hitting journalists could ask some…questions?
Over and over and over again, we keep on seeing it. Scandals are devices that are used to get conservatives out and put liberals in. We are continually reminded of this and most of us just plain can’t see it.
How many liberal donkeys have actually been driven out of their positions because of scandals? I can think of Wright and Torricelli. Anybody else?
We keep seeing this played out, and overall, we remain blind…and if anyone wants to step forward and correct me on what a political scandal is for, let them think again.
Hillary Clinton’s money man is on the run again.
Democratic fund-raiser Norman Hsu was a no-show in a California court yesterday – thanks to authorities who didn’t think an ex-fugitive would jump $2 million bail.
After he surrendered on a 15-year-old fraud rap last week, the rich Hong Kong-born businessman was freed on bail and told to return yesterday.
Surprise, surprise – he didn’t.
And here’s another shocker: His passport is missing, too.
“We do not know where he is as of this moment,” Hsu’s lawyer James Brosnahan admitted to a judge in San Mateo, Calif.
He revealed Hsu even hoodwinked his office, sending them on a wild-goose chase for his passport at his Manhattan condo.
And very little is going to be made out of this. It doesn’t have to do with getting right-wingers out or putting left-wingers in, so it’s going to be played down.
We’re being played. I’ve said so before…it is Thing That Makes Me Barf #2…very little is going to occur over the next year to pose any problems for my theory, and deep down everyone knows it. Scandals have a purpose, and that purpose is to drive Republicans out of power. They have very little to do with fact, or letting “little” people make up their own minds about things. They are about the few exerting control over the many, and installing a more leftist government.
Go ahead. Prove me wrong.
Update 9/11/07: Found the excellent cartoon after a few minutes of frustrated Google-searching which ended here and began over at Malkin’s site here.
One Dubya-Tee-Eff episode rises, like Venus out of the ocean waves, from another. Must mean a Clinton is involved.
Noted “Hillraiser” Norman Hsu is a fugitive on the run from justice. No, really…
Democratic donor Norman Hsu said Wednesday that he would “refrain from all fundraising activities” until he resolved an outstanding warrant for his arrest stemming from a 1991 criminal case in San Mateo County.
Hsu, a major fundraiser over the last three years for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and other Democrats, issued the statement through his attorney after the Los Angeles Times reported that he had been a fugitive for 15 years.
Prosecutors in California said Hsu disappeared in 1992 after pleading no contest and agreeing to serve up to three years in prison for defrauding investors in a Ponzi scheme.
Meanwhile, Clinton’s campaign said Wednesday that it would donate to charity $23,000 in direct donations from Hsu, a New York apparel executive. And other recipients of his donations distanced themselves from the businessman.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California and Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts; Reps. Michael M. Honda of San Jose, Doris Matsui of Sacramento and Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania; and Al Franken, a Senate candidate in Minnesota, said they would divest their campaigns of Hsu’s donations.
If I jotted this down as fiction, surely no publisher would accept it. And yet, here we are.
Democrats have received $200,000 in donations, $45k of that going to Sen. Clinton, from six individuals specifying this bungalow as their address:
The donations have been been coming in since 2005. Two hundred large over two years…that’s…eh, that’s some damn good investing. Hey, there seems to be something familiar about this…
That total ranks the house with residences in Greenwich, Conn., and Manhattan’s Upper East Side among the top addresses to donate to the Democratic presidential front-runner over the past two years, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of donations listed with the Federal Election Commission.
:
Kent Cooper, a former disclosure official with the Federal Election Commission, said the two-year pattern of donations justifies a probe of possible violations of campaign-finance law, which forbid one person from reimbursing another to make contributions. “There are red lights all over this one,” Mr. Cooper said.
Damn straight.
Well, let’s just see what happens. If the name was “Romney” or “Thompson” instead of the C-word, I damn well know what would happen…as it is, I’m not so sure.
This girl has an amazing body. Watch her use it to try to push the platform of a candidate with nothing to say. By far the highest-profile candidate running from any party, who’s been out on the national stage for sixteen years now, and in all that time, apart from her own initiatives has never once been for anything. It is mind-boggling how toxic Hillary Clinton is. As I said about her a week ago…
Hillary Clinton remains as consistent as I expect [Sen. Barack] Obama will be, but in a different way. “If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34 there would be an outraged, outcry in this country.” Clinton is amazing this way…her political tactic has always been the same: Someone’s overly-privileged, someone’s gotten away with shenanigans, and Hillary’s here to take ‘em down a peg. If the issue under discussion is missing this kind of villain, Hillary will inject a villain into it. You could adjust a precision timepiece by watching her do this. In my lifetime, I don’t think I’ve become aware of a more negative candidate, male or female, for anything.
Hillary was speaking about the Supreme Court decision on the Seattle school district. She was making the point that affirmative action is still needed because the country has a racial divide. She chose to zoom in on white women between the ages of 25 and 34. Now, just think about that for a minute — she could have handled this any one of a zillion ways. If she wants to pimp the whole affirmative action racket, and talk about oppressed people who need it, she could have confined her comments to the desperate situations some people are in…and leave it at that. The way our liberals used to do it, and some still do to this day. What is up with this irrational impulse to single out villains all the time?
She can’t help it. It’s her schtick.
Hillary gets away with this, because — and only because — she is a woman. And a Democrat. John Kerry would not be able to do this. Condoleeza Rice would not be able to do this. None of the candidates running in ’08, besides Hillary, can do this. Sooner or later, they actually have to be for something. Or someone. Hillary just carps. Her critics, and her fans, have long ago stopped expecting her to ever do anything different, no matter what the situation. If ever she’s for something…it’s only because she’s against something else.
Taryn wants Hillary because Hillary has ovaries. Taryn wants a woman in the White House. Not a single peep about what she wants Hillary to do…except maybe be bisexual.
Fantastic-looking body aside, Taryn is in the company of millions and millions of people who don’t look as good from the neck down. Flubbery, blubbery, ditzy people. People who’ve completely lost hope in government actually doing anything productive, and aren’t willing to admit it.
Exactly the way most of us felt about government, right before we got Carter. Boy, there’s a sign of good times ahead, huh? Except Hillary has a much better idea of what she wants to do, once she’s elected, than Carter ever did. And that’s not good either.
One of the many things our liberals have been teaching me for the last two-to-four years, give or take, is that America is always wrong. Another thing is, whenever somebody notices our liberals think America is always wrong, that somebody is guilty of putting words into liberals’ mouths. The liberals always have some deeper and more precise meaning, and their words are not being parsed fairly. Always, always, always…there is a little bit more hair-splitting to be done, a little bit more “nuance” to be extracted. And the middleman is always missing out on some crucial meaning.
Poor liberals. So oppressed.
But isn’t it funny? Think how much harder it would be for these middlemen to put words into the liberals’ mouths — if only once in awhile, a high profile liberal went on record and said some good things about America. Not America as our liberals want her to be; America as they find her. Some compliment. Just one. It would make that right-wing smear campaign so much more difficult. So much less effective and practical.
If only.
Well how’s this for a right-wing smear. John Edwards, who ran as the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee in 2004, says Jesus would be disappointed in the United States. The Lamb of God would be appalled at America. There I go, putting words into their mouths. Failing to properly split the hairs.
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says Jesus would be appalled at how the United States has ignored the plight of the suffering, and that he believes children should have private time to pray at school.
Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, said Jesus would be most upset with the selfishness of Americans and the country’s willingness to go to war “when it’s not necessary.”
“I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs,” Edwards told the site. “I think he would be appalled, actually.”
It all looks pretty clear to me. Maybe our blue-staters are right, there’s some “nuance” there I’m just not bright enough to see.
There is much to admire in Best of the Web by James Taranto, but I thought yesterday’s slicing-and-dicing was particularly artful. I’ll go back and update when there’s a permalink this afternoon, but here’s the item in full:
On Sunday Sen. Barack Obama, speaking at Iowa State University, made this jaw-dropping statement:
We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.
Wasted! Hard to believe anyone would say such a thing, but there it is on video.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports Obama quickly fired up the nuance machine:
Obama, in an interview with the Des Moines Register right afterward, told the paper, ”I was actually upset with myself when I said that, because I never use that term,” he said. ”Their sacrifices are never wasted. . . . What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.”
Aha, so this is what he meant to say:
We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans that have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.
But instead of those last 27 words (which don’t entirely make sense–e.g., “the same attention” as what?), what came out of his mouth was “wasted.” Just a wee slip of the tongue!
The Sun-Times notes that Obama is sorry you took what he said the wrong way, which is to say, the way he actually said it:
By Monday, reporters covering Obama making his first visit as a presidential candidate in New Hampshire, asked Obama, campaigning in a Nashua home, if military families deserved an apology.
“Well as I said, it is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any of them felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they’d shown. You know, and if you look at all the other speeches that I’ve made, that is always the starting point in my view of this war.”
Me again. Now then class, how did Barack Obama get into trouble here? The same way so many of us get into trouble…all the time. We’re called upon to deliver a few words about what to do about some present situation, and instead, we huff and puff and pontificate instead about what is going on, and whether or not it meets our approval.
But…real life, and the tough decisions therein, seldom gives a shit about whether things meet our approval.
It’s just like liver and desert. There’s something we gotta get done…there’s something else that’s fun to do. It’s a human failing to do the thing that’s fun to do, instead of the thing that we know we need to get done — form a plan.
I’ve often heard it said that it’s a “conservative Republican canard” that Democrats have not yet formed a plan to deal with Iraq — that they have, they have, they have, and those poor oppressed Democrats, nobody’s talking about their plan. Well, how can we? They won’t talk about their plan. They just like to talk about how much they disapprove of the things that are going on…dessert before peas.
Is this plan they’ve cooked up, really what they’re all about, when they don’t want to talk about it? It would splinter up their base somewhat, but at least we’d know what they want to do. And how committed they are to it. Contrasted with that…how many bowls of ice cream have the Democrats had without nibbling at their dinner? How many times have we heard how they don’t like us being in Iraq? We get it. And even a swimsuit thunderstud media sensation like Obama, lacks the rhetorical skill to state it coherently.
I like this thing, I don’t like that other thing over there…it’s yummy, and fun to dish out. But it lacks nutritional value. And not only that, but there’s a point of diminishing returns involved. Having listened to the Democrats give us our instructions that we shouldn’t think highly of the operations in Iraq for four years solid now, I’d say we’re all past that point.
Well, chalk this one up as a win. A giant triple-scoop sundae win, with a nutty sprinkling of humor…but also a drizzling of caution.
The Edwards campaign has accepted the resignation of blogmistress Amanda Marcotte, the potty-mouth anti-Catholic shill who writes for the hard-left-wing feminist resource Pandagon. It’s a story of the unsuccessful straddling of the chasmatic divide between blogging, in which the need to please everyone is non-existent, and politics, in which the need to please everyone is…well, everywhere.
Which ’08 Dem doesn’t want our support? by Kagro X
Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 01:30:51 PM PST
Just yesterday, I outlined why the response to the manufactured controversy over the John Edwards campaign bloggers was the responsibility of all Democratic campaigns, and not just Edwards’:
[T]he real power of this game is that it separates Edwards from the Democratic pack, and isolates him. It allows the other Democratic candidates — after mopping their brows and thanking their lucky stars that they’re not (currently) in the cross hairs — to do the right’s work for them by taking the path of least resistance and either watching silently from the sidelines, or actively distancing themselves from him.
That gives the right undue leverage on our side of the aisle. Leverage to which they are not only not entitled, but which is revocable at our say-so.
The loudest voices calling for Edwards to dismiss his bloggers are — and no one can doubt this — never in a million years going to vote for him, either in a primary or a general election. So why are they allowed to drive his decision-making? Not because they can withhold votes from him, but because they can cause Democratic voters to do so instead….
But to the extent that the netroots seek to demand a show of loyalty by Edwards, that same demand must be made of every Democratic campaign. Today, the target is Edwards. Tomorrow, should this vendetta prove successful, the target could be anyone.
This fight, if Edwards is going to be called upon to make it, must be everyone’s fight. If the other campaigns cannot demonstrate that they would have displayed the same courage we call upon Edwards to display, then they benefit from the right’s strategy of divide and conquer. And to the extent that they benefit, they give a pass to and encourage such attacks in the future, and are powerless to stop them when the next one comes. All they can do is hold on tight, cross their fingers, and pray they’re not the next target. And that’s no way to win anything. Certainly not the White House.
Well, it’s not yet 24 hours later, and guess what?
Someone just didn’t have enough respect for you:
Bloggers heralded the decision to keep them; the Catholic League was outraged, and a top adviser to a rival campaign took a shot: “Apparently they’re more afraid of the bloggers than they are the Catholics.”
Who did it?
I want to know.
You want to know.
And now, they’ll be desperate not to let you know.
I’m just a silly little blogger, but I have this advice for whoever did it: Don’t you ever let me find out.
Ha. I love this stuff. Bloggers…not just any ol’ bloggers, but the folks who make the plural into a pejorative, lacking the maturity to even acknowledge, let alone accept, that other folks might have disparate viewpoints on things. Bloggers, of a decidedly leftist tilt, who are just a bit too aclimated to the blogging environment — press some keys, the computer will do whatever you tell it to do. Along they come, swaggering into the barroom of politics, in which anyone sober enough to mount a barstool must be appeased. And they can’t handle it. They’re used to ruling the roost. Here in the setting not for the meek, power must be shared. It’s too much for them.
Heh. Heh. “Don’t you ever let me find out.” I just love that one. Hey Sparky…your ability to mobilize the masses with your vast power of bloggification, has been weighed. It’s been measured. It’s been balanced against the similar attribute possessed by those you seek to tick off, and your side has been found to be lacking.
You really want a rematch?
Anyway. Now for the caution. There’s this meme going around that Marcotte got sacked, and she got sacked because she uses the fuck-word a little bit too much. This is taking flight along the hardcore-conservative side, in which the fuck-word earns universally the derision it deserves in some situations…and giving rise to a sentiment that bloggers who use the fuck-word had better look out.
I can’t hop onto that bandwagon for two reasons: One, obviously, I use the fuck-word around here. Two, it wouldn’t be logical or effective. Let me expound on Two somewhat…I could, tomorrow, take an oath to never again use the word “fuck” on my blog. It fuckin’ stops right now, mkay? Answer me this, then. Toward what end? To show that my points are so good, so sensible, that I can make them without using the word fuck?
Yeah there would be a grain of logic in that. I’d be able to see it; the people who agree with me, would be able to see it. And to persuade others toward my point of view, sure, I can do that without using the word fuck. But — what then am I to say about people who still blog about fuck this, fuck that, fuck whatever…I must be superior to them now, right? I must. If not, there was no point to my oath to stop using the word fuck.
And there was a point. Therefore, I’m a lot better than they are.
So what happens next time someone else comes along, who agrees with my point of view, and is not so enlightened as to stop using the fuck-word. What of that? If I can sit on my high, squeaky-clean anti-fuck pedestal and look down about all the other bloggers still swimming in this filthy sewer of fuck-word slime…are my opinions not being derogated anyway, by my own logic, when they’re being sympathetically echoed by bloggers who still use the word fuck?
So my note of caution is this. Be careful about the moral of the story. Marcotte didn’t get sacked because of her potty mouth. She didn’t even get sacked; she quit. The lesson is this: Blogging is a method of communication. Nothing more. It opens a new doorway to things not tried before, because there are aspects of it inherently incompatible with the political arena. If that were not the case, bloggers wouldn’t be saying anything new, and if they weren’t saying anything new we wouldn’t be talking about them.
And so it becomes a logical necessity that there are contagions in the blogosphere that don’t fit into what we’re used to seeing. And it’s not just the fuck-word. It’s this practice of deliberately trying to tick off the Catholics just to get high-fives and pats-on-the-back from your liberal buddies…like Ms. Marcotte does. Or, for taking the time to point out things you’re not going to be told by anyone who seeks to promote and preserve a public reputation.
Politicians can’t back this stuff. They might think they can, but they can’t. Their mission is to make everyone happy; bloggers have a mission that is directly opposed to this. Especially on the left, I notice. Every leftist agenda, it seems, is somewhat fuzzy on what exactly it’s supposed to achieve or how it’s going to go about making such an accomplishment…and much sharper about which demographic it’s supposed to tax, slander, over-regulate, and to sum it up in general, cheese off and make unhappy. Every leftist agenda seems to have such a target. Parents, white people, men, religious people, people who sell stock at a profit, beneficiaries of an estate.
What do our liberal politicians do? They paper over this intentional injury with euphemisms. What do our liberal bloggers do? They advertise how much damage they’re going to do against the targeted class. Go on, read some liberal blogs for a few minutes. So the marriage between liberal bloggers and liberal politicians is doomed to unhappiness and divorce, I’m afraid. The similar marriage on the conservative side, for similar reasons, is doomed to a similar fate.
Rather fascinating to be living through this experiment and thus to be invited to attend the wedding reception. I’m just not going to be spending a lot on the gifts and I’ll not be hanging around the reception for very long. The Edwards/Marcotte falling-out is an inevitability that awaits all who initiate the same enterprise, regardless of political leanings…and a generation down the road, we’ll be looking back on the practice the same way we, today, look back on pet rocks.
Update: Bill O’Reilly doesn’t think the way I do. His arguments are filled with “you do this” and “you don’t do that” and such and such is “beyond the pale,” whereas I’m more of an if-you-do-this-that-will-happen kind of a guy. He works with commandments, I work with consequences. He’s Pillar III and I’m Pillar IV.
So we have the same sentiments about this whole thing but we have different ways of pointing it out. Those sentiments can best be summed up thusly: These women are loonies.
I’ve never particularly cared for Ben Shapiro. The man is a good writer, but so are many others, and I always got the impression he was getting a lot of attention because of his pedigree, his educational history, and his age. The habit he has that gets under my skin, is to write about what he thinks is going on, and comment about it as if it’s an established fact. Now, in all fairness, everybody who writes about current events ultimately has to do this, over and over again. I try to sprinkle mine with “I can’t prove it, but” or words to that effect. To me, when I write about something, there’s a situation involved. The situation has become worthy of comment, because something has been left unexplained — so you start with what has been left unexplained. And within that, you start with what you know for a fact. Only then do you opine about what could be going on, to explain what has been left unexplained.
Shapiro seems to be opposed to this…which is fine, it simply means he is creating a product intended for consumption by others.
But early his morning I was looking for an article on this weird phenomenon I don’t understand, called Barack Obama. Obama is a freshman senator from Illinois, a possible candidate for the presidency in ’08. He is a candidate the way Julia Roberts is a movie star: A good one, the evidence says only a good one and not a great one. But the hype says he’s more than great, he “walks on water” and he’s the “real deal.” NOBODY knows why this is, as far as I can see. To reason and common sense, he’s simply more articulate than our current President. And many others are that much.
And I was googling for an article that was wondering the same thing, and sought to explain it — the way I would have. I’m not sure I was able to dredge it up again; this thing in the Seattle Times has a few phrases that set of some bells. Maybe that’s it. But by mistake, I run into this thing by Ben Shapiro. Once again, Shapiro has it down cold, he knows everything. This is no great offense mind you — where he speculates, he speculates safely. And, again, other people are just eating his product up and demanding seconds, so that’s great. It’s just, once again, I’m seeing a younger man who hasn’t learned things about what-you-don’t-know-yet, that I’ve had to learn. He’s a living pictogram of lessons I’ve already been taught, that I have no desire to learn again.
But Ben Shapiro is becoming an excellent writer. He’s a better writer than Barack Obama is a presidential candidate; not just good, but great.
And hey, if he thinks he knows something about this Obama character that I’m just starting to figure out, there’s a pretty good likelihood that he’s right. I’m still more confused and befuddled than young Shapiro, so for the time being I’ll read what he has to say about Sen. Obama. Nothing, absolutely nothing I say, has come to my attention that would directly contradict the explanations Shapiro has to offer. And he seems to have turned that corner that aspiring writers sometimes turn, where his output actually becomes a source of education and entertainment at the same time. In that sense, he’s more senior than I am.
He has virtually no voting record; he has virtually no articulated positions. Ask his advocates, and they will describe him as “a breath of fresh air” — but ask them about a single position he holds, and they will stare at you as though you are speaking in tongues. They will tell you, however, that Obama “understands” every position you hold…Where’s the meat? It’s all well and good to campaign on the basis of “common sense” and “smart government,” as Obama did in his softball interview with Tim Russert, but no politician in history has ever campaigned on any other basis. Where does Obama stand? His own writings display the weakness inherent in his platform of “understanding”: If you profess to understand everything, you understand nothing. Not every conflict can be glossed over by “hugging it out.” Focusing more on “understanding” and less on questions of morality coddles the immoral.
Take, for example, Obama’s “understanding” with regard to our enemies in the war on terror. In his new introduction to his first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” Obama writes, “My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.” Except, of course, that Obama proceeds to “understand” those he has just dismissed, blaming terrorism on “the underlying struggle” between “worlds of plenty and worlds of want” — a neo-Marxist interpretation of the rise of Islamofascism. “I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless,” Obama writes, “how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into despair and violence.” This is a sickening comparison; even the worst inner city youths generally do not join up with Al Qaeda.
What makes him a good writer? Many things in this piece do, but this sentence stands out: “There is a thin line between being open-minded and empty-headed.”
Bingo. You nailed it.
Although my indictment against Mr. Shapiro stands — what it comes down to, is, like a teenager he’s “young enough to know everything” — this is not necessarily bad. In fact it can come in handy. People like me need people like him.
Here’s a case where I would like to apply the energies of one who is quick to figure things out, and slow to uncertainty: How the Republicans will handle Barack Obama should the freshman senator be nominated. With questions like the ones I have, it’s impossible to find the Achilles’ Heel of a given target; but I have high confidence Mr. Shapiro has identified it correctly. Senator Obama is weak. Weak is a one-syllable word, easily understood, with a primal meaning for those interested since prehistoric times.
I’m taking it as a mostly-established tradition, now elevated beyond any possible doubt, that the Republicans won’t use this against him. If they do, they won’t do it properly. To much of the electorate — especially those who re-elected President Bush in ’04, but voted for a Democrat Congress in ’06 — it is a highly relevant issue. Why is it, that the issue of Sen. Obama’s weakness on issues, will not be exploited?
Why will it not be discussed by the Republicans — not even to a tiny fraction of the volume and rage, with which Democrats excoriate George Bush for his public-speaking failures?
Have we reached a point where Democrats and Republicans agree, that the spoken style is everything, and positions on issues mean nothing?
This is still something I must conclude with a question mark. Other folks, Shapiro included, are far more certain about what’s going on. I’d sure like to hear from them.
None of the troops that are stuck there, seem to want to talk to him or even be seen with him. I guess they lack the education to know who he is.
I really don’t want to be a Democrat right now. You know, the actual leaders and representatives and movers-n-shakers who have to decide what the platform’s going to be. I don’t want to be those guys. YEAH they won…let’s face it, the Republicans don’t have a winning party right now. But putting the Democrats in charge — that was just a case of, status quo not good, do anything BUT the status quo. Fair enough.
But I think it’s going to start sinking in: If you are a Democrat, you are REQUIRED to think soldiers are the very lowest rung of society, just a notch above the homeless. Uneducated, antisocial, anger-management issues, maybe retarded, probably disease-infested. If you’re a Democrat, and you happen to meet someone in the military who genuinely impresses you in a positive way — you MUST keep that a secret to yourself. Spill the beans that there are intelligent, dedicated professionals in our military, and you’ll get kicked outta the club.
The electorate, as a whole, will catch on to that. Someday. And when it happens, the Democrats are going the way of the Whig party. I hope it happens in the next two years.
Okay, here we go again. Sandy Berger, who was President Clinton’s National Security Adviser, lifted confidential documents from the National Archives by sticking them in his underwear and socks. Some of these he destroyed. We will probably never know what these were. At one time he was offering some half-assed defense that he did the whole thing by mistake, like, he was unaware there were papers being jammed in his boxers. Well, that clearly doesn’t fly, so the best guess is he was throwing out a bunch of bullshit to get people to stop asking questions.
He got a tap on the wrist. A hundred hours community service and a $50,000 fine. YOU…most assuredly, would have gotten far worse for doing the same thing.
Now let’s just say someone is reading this who actually has an attention span. Loves Bush hates Clinton…loves Clinton hates Bush…neo-con…neo-Nazi…neo-communist…greenie…whatever. But can actually stay tuned in to a train of thought and come to a conclusion about it with some measure of objectivity. And this person is mulling over the new information that came out, about Sandy Berger and the construction trailer (H/T: Boortz). Yeah, Sandy Berger used a construction trailer to hide the document(s), checking to make sure nobody was watching him stick it under there — coming back for it later. Kinda takes the wind out of the sails of that “oops I did it again” argument doesn’t it? Okay…what to make of this. Looks like Sandy was hiding something. Oh yeah, can’t prove it, but nothing else explains things. No reason whatsoever to suppose otherwise.
How do you reconcile this with the fairy tale we were just told, about the Republican culture of corruption and how the Democrats are going to come riding in to make everything right? The best information we can get, is that Democrats make everything right by not getting caught. And when they’re caught, this media, that ol’ “lapdog of the Bush Administration” media, will do their part to make the problem go away as fast as possible.
You doubt me? Try this…just try it. Let’s say it was Condi who did the same thing. How many times a day would we be hearing about this? She’s going in, shoving documents in her suit jacket and down her skirt — doesn’t check the documents out, just smuggles ’em out. And then shreds some. Hides others in construction trailers. Years down the line, we have no clue what she destroyed, and no way to find out.
You have the floor, 
We keep seeing this played out, and overall, we remain blind…and if anyone wants to step forward and correct me on what a political scandal is for, 
Well, chalk this one up as a win. A giant triple-scoop sundae win, with a nutty sprinkling of humor…but also a drizzling of caution.
I’ve never particularly cared for Ben Shapiro. The man is a good writer, but so are many others, and I always got the impression he was getting a lot of attention because of his pedigree, his educational history, and his age. The habit he has that gets under my skin, is to write about what he thinks is going on, and comment about it as if it’s an established fact. Now, in all fairness, everybody who writes about current events ultimately has to do this, over and over again. I try to sprinkle mine with “I can’t prove it, but” or words to that effect. To me, when I write about something, there’s a situation involved. The situation has become worthy of comment, because something has been left unexplained — so you start with what has been left unexplained. And within that, you start with what you know for a fact. Only then do you opine about what could be going on, to explain what has been left unexplained.
But early his morning I was looking for an article on this weird phenomenon I don’t understand, called Barack Obama. Obama is a freshman senator from Illinois, a possible candidate for the presidency in ’08. He is a candidate the way Julia Roberts is a movie star: A good one, the evidence says only a good one and not a great one. But the hype says he’s more than great, he “walks on water” and he’s the “real deal.” NOBODY knows why this is, as far as I can see. To reason and common sense, he’s simply more articulate than our current President. And many others are that much.