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...
Stunning Level of Apathy
Running for national office as a Democrat has got to be an interesting experience. There’s no way you can emerge from such an adventure with anything close to the same mindset as what you had before it all began. The level of apathy these candidates have, about what is within their control, versus what is outside of it, is just breathtaking. It is stunning. I’m hard-pressed to think of another thing you can try to do, public-relations or otherwise, with such a level of apathy and still possess even the most remote shot at success.
As an insulin-dependent diabetic who wears an insulin pump 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and who is already suffering some complications, and faces a future filled with such delightful thoughts as impotence, amputation, blindness, and eventual death, I hope and pray every night for a cure.
But I don’t, I can’t, trust John Edwards and John Kerry. There is plenty of research into stem cells going on — Bush is only imposing limitations on federal funding of certain types of research.
And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let myself be used as a political prop by anyone. Go to hell, you damned ambulance-chasing louse — it’s you and people like you that makes my insurance rates so damned high and my doctor so paranoid.
Thus speaketh “X” as of October 2004, in a Wizbang! thread under the story about John Edwards’ speech the day before. Edwards was going on about all the good stuff about to unfold when/if a Kerry/Edwards ticket was to be sent to the White House…stuff that any third-grader can tell you, the President of the United States doesn’t actually get to make happen. Specifically, the ability to stop “juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases. … People like Chris Reeve will get out of their wheelchairs and walk again.”
I touched on this recently with the “Moral Authority” issue, with my flabbergastedness that this late in the game, we still get to hear that doublet of words, about anything…let alone, continue to see the doublet worn down to a such a threadbare cliche. The object of said flabbergastedness was none other than Democratic Committee chairman Howard Dean, opining, with no small amount of bullying undertone, about how with a Kerry presidency in place, fighting in the Middle East would surely have stopped by now.
If you think what’s going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldn’t, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didn’t get where we are today. We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when he brought together the Northern Irish and the IRA, when he brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.
On this, I stand on the reflections I had originally made.
…if a challenger comes along who can solve a complicated problem, the first attribute he’s going to display is a working knowledge of what would be within his control as the problem-solver, and what would not be. People who babble on about M.A., are advertising that they lack the ability to make this distinction, and are apathetic about acquiring it.
Reminds me of one of my Boy Scout experiences, one in which my troop was introduced to the concept of leadership. We were at Camp Black Mountain and I believe the year was ’78 or ’79…could be earlier. The camp counselor was addressing us, and it was late in a summer afternoon, so that the sun blasted our eyes from behind the lake as we squinted in his direction from the bleachers. And he began to tell us about authority. Not moral authority, just authority.
He said he would demonstrate it for us.
He spun around on his heel, and screamed over the lake as loud as his lungs would permit, “YOU SET, YOU SUN!!!”
Then he turned around and said, now, just wait a little while.
You know the difference between that, and what Democrats do? I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now…the sun, after a little while, actually set. Oh, and his little-white-lie was based on some measure of humor, not a desire to actually deceive people.
Contrast that with John Kerry’s obsequious babblings while stumping for Jennifer Granholm in Michigan this weekend.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., who was in town Sunday to help Gov. Jennifer Granholm campaign for her re-election bid, took time to take a jab at the Bush administration for its lack of leadership in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.
“If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John’s bar and grill in Detroit’s Cass Corridor.
Bush has been so concentrated on the war in Iraq that other Middle East tension arose as a result, he said.
“The president has been so absent on diplomacy when it comes to issues affecting the Middle East,” Kerry said. “We’re going to have a lot of ground to make up (in 2008) because of it.” [emphasis mine]
Christ on a pogo stick, can’t he stop if he wants to? Come to think of it, a President Kerry would actually have it in his power to do…quite a lot. The President can get a lot of stuff started, and get a lot of stuff stopped. Thinking back on it all, I’m hard pressed to recollect any action the President is constitutionally empowered to undertake, that John Kerry has actually said he would do…or not do. His plans and pledges seem to be carefully confined to the workspace of things over which the President has no actual power.
Everything goes back to what he wanted us to do, that we didn’t want to do. Can you imagine what a fun teenager John Kerry must have been? “Mom…Mom…you really should have let me borrow the car this weekend. Mom, you know what? The Doctor wouldn’t have diagnosed you with ovarian cancer if you let me borrow the car this weekend. Hey Mom, Dad wouldn’t have run away with the maid if you let me borrow the car. Mom, you know what? The cat wouldn’t have swallowed those rubber bands and stuck you with a five hundred dollar vet bill if you let me borrow the car this weekend. Anyway, can I borrow the car? Mom? I’m sorry the boss laid you off. It wouldn’t have happened if you let me borrow the car.” Headache City!
Surely we’d all have to agree Mr. Kerry is now in the territory of self-parody. The only thing about which there could be disagreement among sane, mature adults, is at what point he crossed that boundary. It would be sad enough if this was his personal quirk, but as his party Chairman has already shown us, to say nothing of his former running mate, this appears to be what being a Democrat is all about.
Update: There is a subtle political commentary about this kind of “I know what to do!” codswallopedness in the 1988 movie, Die Hard. Right after the hostages are taken, this ferret-faced guy announces that he knows what to do. I have no idea what this guy’s name is. But anyway, he just decides, on his own, he’s going to go talk to the bad guys. He’s going to make the bad guys listen to reason. With great fanfare, he goes in to start his jolly unofficial negotiation session. In the subsequent scene, which is carefully calculated to show just what a heartless “mo-fo” Alan Rickman really is, the ferret-faced guy gets a bullet right between the eyes.
The purpose is not to show that being a European-wussie, reality-challenged control freak can get you killed; it’s to show, simply, that your crap just don’t work. I’m not a big fan of taking lessons about reality from the cinema, but this one happens to work pretty well. There is little correlation, if any, between the outward level of confidence people show in their solutions working on pre-defined problems, and how well those solutions do, indeed, work. Nobody shows this more vividly than Democrats. Two or three years after they get elected, everything that happens is beyond their control. But just a little while before that, while they’re still hitting that campaign trail oh-so-hard, nothing is.
Another Update: Via Best of the Web, our memories are refreshed about the excellent parody made about John Edwards’ “Get Chris Reeve Outta That Chair” speech, in The Onion. What I am articulating by dry, tedious, heavy quasi-philosophical musings, they have managed to hash with some easy-to-read and excellent scathing satire.
If you put John Kerry and me in the White House, we’ll have each one of you in the driver’s seat of a brand-new SUV. Your bosses will be less cranky, your children will be kept in trucker hats and iPods, and your TV screens will grow even wider. Those who are bald will wake up one morning and magically find themselves with thick heads of luxurious, silky hair. You’ll open your refrigerators and 15-pound hams will tumble out. Your dog might even start to talk, and the first thing he’ll say is “I love you.” It’ll be that good.
Did I mention… the tax cut? John Kerry and I support a nice, big, fat, fucking tax cut for you, because let’s face it, nothing good can ever come from taxes. They’re a big pain in the ass! We’ll do fine without ’em! There! I’m feeling so cheery, I wouldn’t be surprised if a friggin’ unicorn stepped out on stage and started humpin’ my leg!
Say, anybody out there a fan of… the Green Bay Packers? All right! Cool!
Zing. It wouldn’t leave that nasty red welt, if there wasn’t a lot of truth to it.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
What I am articulating by dry, tedious, heavy quasi-philosophical musings, they have managed to hash with some easy-to-read and excellent scathing satire.
I dunno, Morgan. The part about what a fun teenager Kerry would have made was pretty darned funny. You sell yourself short.
Great stuff!
- Phil | 07/25/2006 @ 10:40Hard to claim credit for it. People in positions of power talk to their potential supporters as if the supporters are idiots, and seemingly get away with it…I just lose it. The fingers flap around on the keyboard, and when I regain consciousness there’s all this stuff on the screen.
Just channeling the ancient spirit of Hunk-Ra, I guess. Maybe I should stop calling it “The Blog Nobody Reads” and rename it to “The blog nobody alive is consciously writing.”
Anyway, thanks for the kind comment.
- mkfreeberg | 07/25/2006 @ 12:02