Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Glen Dean says my candidate is going to win.
Well, I’m certainly more inclined to believe him than conventional wisdom. The old tried, trusted and busted conventional wisdom, aside from laboring under the burden of a rich history of being just-plain-wrong, is trying to tell me that Hillary would kick Fred’s ass. Being a technical guy, I’m a big believer in the devil’s advocate, and I’ve been trying like the dickens to envision Hillary kicking Fred’s ass…with her perhaps-record-setting “unfavorable” rating. And I dunno. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part. It’s just tough to see.
Granted it is difficult to keep my feelings out of it, since the survival of this country may very well be determined by such a contest. But to weigh it objectively — the first thing we have to inspect, is what does Hillary have to offer that Fred does not? Name recognition? Y’know, I think Fred has that one matched. Toughness? Ditto. Oh, and he’s taller, too.
Hillary has hair. But she isn’t known for her hair, she’s known for being an unpleasant woman. We don’t have a history of voting for pleasant, but we dang sure have no precedent, none whatsoever, in electing unpleasant.
She could continue President Clinton’s legacy. Now, granted the Clintons do have a considerable fan club; can it win an election? Seems to me if it could, it would have done it in 2000. Yes — Al Gore did win the popular vote. You know the real reason that makes big news? It’s something Bill Clinton never did. So yes, the Clinton fan base is formidable, but not too much. If it’s all that Hillary Clinton has, she’d better get something else.
There is opportunity to learn about scandal with Fred. This could be a potential advantage for Hillary, because we probably know everything about her we’re ever going to know, or something close to that; but we can certainly manage to hear a little bit more noise about it. In late 2007, there is this “Wall of Silence” because if nobody says anything, the first-time voters in 2008 (age at “Travel-Gate”: three) might be persuaded to punch Hillary’s space on the ballot without understanding who they’re nominating or electing. This wall is not only regrettable, but it’s ill-advised — a full presidential election is a tempestuous affair, and all bubbles burst in a tempest. Our potential for “learning” about Hillary and her various shenanigans, seems to be sky-high. So it’s fair to say we can see “new” scandals generated, on both candidates. Which field, once plowed sown and harvested, would produce the biggest bumper-crop, is a matter to be decided by Thompson’s personal integrity and character. I have faith that he has some.
To inspect the matter further at this early date, is to inspect to the point of distraction.
But conventional wisdom says Fred’s ass is going to be kicked by Hillary. Common sense, as it so often does, says the opposite. When conventional wisdom and common sense say oppositional things, conventional wisdom almost always bites the mat. It’s record in those match-ups is pretty dismal…kind of like Volkswagen versus freight train. And if that’s how this is most likely to shake out, then I’m going to go make some popcorn.
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I haven’t even begun to make my mind up on this subject, as yet. But I suppose I should start doing my research/reading, seeing as how we’re about three months away from the first caucuses/primaries.
That said…I’m leaning towards Rudy at the moment. Your boy Fred has made some surprising gaffes of late. And I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something about Fred that kinda rubs me the wrong way.
- Buck | 10/05/2007 @ 11:07I don’t know if Fred is going to be elected, much less nominated, but I agree that Hillary’s chances of election are pretty slim. She’s everyone’s wicked stepmother. The only people that really like her, besides the Dems, are the editors of the MSM. But they were great backers of John Kerry, too, going so far as to refuse to give the Swift Boaters a forum. Yet old feckless John lost. So, if the conventional wisdom lines up behind the publicity, it has to go for Hillary. But common sense says lots of folks are turned off by the MSM’s publicity. There certainly were enough of them in 2004. I expect there will be even more by 2008. And besides, as you say, she’s not very likable. Put your money on Fred or Rudy. Hillarity is a poor bet.
- dstanley777 | 10/05/2007 @ 11:39At the risk of seeming one of those types who is overly influenced by the last person he talked to… I saw an extended interview with Mike Huckabee on
- Buck | 10/06/2007 @ 11:27McNeil – LehrerThe News Hour last evening (transcript here). And came away impressed. It’s too bad he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance, because the guy has a record of accomplishment, is VERY well-spoken, and says all the right things (from my POV).Buck,
Mike Huckabee has a good name as far as I’m concerned. Standard candidate rules for any candidate apply: The most important question is, how many dead terrorist carcasses will he bring in, per month, in his service as our President?
And because of the nature of the threat being confronted, the actual answer to that, is somewhat less important than the candidate’s acknowledgment that the question is, indeed, the most important one of our time. My dream candidate would be asked about universal healthcare or global warming, answer the question just barely enough to give his position as requested (preferably three words, to both — “it’s a crock”), and then launch into a monologue about how to fight the War on Terror on the offensive.
Like I said, Huckabee’s got a lot of gold stars next to his name in my ledger. But frankly, he failed this test in the transcript you provided. The interviewers presented the question about “Iraq” in context as if the whole issue is about some mop-up exercise we’re doing, and we’re debating how to put the pieces together in some china shop we just charged through. It’s purely a donk talking point, and Huckabee didn’t correct it. Worse still (and this surprised me a lot) he took the initiative in trotting out the tired ol’ “world hates us, what are we going to do to get them to like us again.” This is the opposite of leadership. I don’t begrudge people for having that viewpoint, on a personal level, but if they hold it I wish they’d stop running for offices that involve making decisions about things.
- mkfreeberg | 10/06/2007 @ 11:41You have a valid point, Morgan, when you say “Worse still (and this surprised me a lot) he took the initiative in trotting out the tired ol’ ‘world hates us, what are we going to do to get them to like us again.'” I noted that as I watched in real time, but chose to read just a little bit “in between the lines” in his response, which was:
Right now, they hate us. And we’ve got to fix that. We don’t fix that by becoming a weaker nation. I want us to be the strongest nation economically, militarily, diplomatically, every way in which we can be measured, but I want us to also use our strength and power to encourage other countries to be their best because, with a rising tide, all boats float higher.
By “in between the lines,” I mean the bit about us being the strongest we can be in every measurable aspect. One of the Dems’ softest, most vulnerable areas (in my book) is their traditional weakness on defense. Paradoxically, the Dems are also prone to “pull the trigger” without a lot of thought, and worse, without much purpose. Witness Clinton’s “drive-by shootings” with cruise missiles about the time he was fooling around with Monica…and worse, the Somalia debacle. (The random Lefty that stumbles in here will probably have an apoplectic fit over the foregoing…but it’s true.) Major digression, there. At any rate, Huckabee did a marginally credible job of explaining himself. I wish he would have gone deeper in his explanation, but…consider the set and setting.
If you want a real laugh, go read the transcript of the interview The News Hour did with Kucinich just the day before. I just can’t believe anyone takes that guy seriously…especially Kucinich himself. That guy is a bad parody of every single thing I dislike about The Donkey Party. But he is good for a laugh.
- Buck | 10/06/2007 @ 17:15Well right now I’m still in the Fred camp, but I don’t see him much in the news — this may be on purpose. Or it could be because I don’t watch news much. My home page at home is BBC news, and at work it’s RealClearPolitics. You don’t see anything about him on BBC. There’s usually one or two on RCP. I don’t see them talking about him much in our local newspaper or on the occasional drive-by of Fox News or CNN you’ll occasionally catch me doing.
So I think the RCP frequency is an anomaly.
I like Fred for what he at least appears to stand for. And that’s the point I’d actually like to make.
Once, just once, I’d like to see a campaign that’s about what policies the candidates are for and which ones they are against — what they would do, rather than endless months of “his latest scandal is worse than mine!”
Oh yeah? Which one respects the second amendment? Which one believes we should finish fights we start instead of getting tired and going home for milk and cookies? Which one believes this should be a socialist country? Which one does not?
Because if that’s the kind of conversation we’re going to have, Fred wins hands down.
- philmon | 10/08/2007 @ 17:33