"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
by Smitty
This blog fully understands the compulsive desire to link The Other McCain, but encourages blogger safety at all points. If you’re all broken up, how can you link us more?
Ouch! OK, it was an ice skating accident. Seriously, TLC: best wishes for a speedy recovery.
by Smitty
Sweet, sweet NewSpeak.
How thou makest
the truth to reek.
And those blindest
Who’d their past seek.
Dionne’s column is masterful. Wander through the professional-grade propaganda has E. J. denounces the GOP candidates. A taste:
The GOP is engaged in a wholesale effort to redefine the government help that Americans take for granted as an effort to create a radically new, statist society. Consider Romney’s claim in his Bedford speech: “President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing — the government.”
Obama believes no such thing. If he did, why are so many continuing to make bundles on Wall Street? As my colleagues Greg Sargent and Paul Krugman have been insisting, Romney is saying things about the president that are flatly, grossly and shamefully untrue. But Romney’s sleight of hand is revealing: Republicans are increasingly inclined to argue that any redistribution (and Social Security, Medicare, student loans, veterans benefits and food stamps are all redistributive) is but a step down the road to some radically egalitarian dystopia.
Obama will thus be the conservative in 2012, in the truest sense of that word. He is the candidate defending the modestly redistributive and regulatory government the country has relied on since the New Deal, and that neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush dismantled.
If American history had begun in 1913, then maybe Dionne’s argument would be less of a dirty diaper shoved in the face.
redefine the government help that Americans take for granted as an effort to create a radically new, statist society
It’s not that I would deny E. J. the private right to velvet handcuffs, and whatever other kink turns him on. It’s the fact that this “government help” suppository is being rejected. The plurality of Americans think ObamaCare stinks, and are glomming onto the fact that the rest of the “safety net” programs are also made of industrial strength crap. What is the difference between entitlements and a pressure-sale for a timeshare? I don’t know, either.
And the joke about President Wall Street:
Obama believes no such thing. If he did, why are so many continuing to make bundles on Wall Street?
Ummm, so that the Wall Streeters can line BHO’s wallet? If you really believe there isn’t Wall Street/White House collusion afoot, Dionne, you may represent a safety hazard while driving a vehicle. And alluding to Krugman, E. J., helps your credibility about as much as saying ‘I snort Drano‘.
And truth?
Obama will thus be the conservative in 2012, in the truest sense of that word.
Have you seen truth at any point this year, Dionne? Conservatives conserve liberty. The Federal government, as such, is never an object of conservation. We conserve liberty like we conserve the environment, and both precede this decadent, Postmodern era, filled with lousy, deceptive twerps who urinate down the public back and declare precipitation.
The interesting question, E. J., is whether you have any self-awareness of the falsehood of the ideas you peddle. Are you really so flush with commie kool-aid that you believe this stuff, or are you just a simple prostitute, turning in these acts of Hooverism for a paycheck?
via Alan Colmes
by Smitty
Earlier, this blog noted the plight of the Egyptian Christians. Memeorandum points to The New York Times (twice today) with atrocious news:
A series of apparently coordinated bombings struck three churches during Christmas services across Nigeria on Sunday, killing more than a dozen people and solidifying a recent escalation in violence by a radical Muslim sect.
At least five bombings were reported, including three at churches and one at a state security building. The worst appeared to be at a packed Catholic church just outside the capital, Abuja, where a bomb tore through the building and killed at least 16 people as they left a morning mass.
Now, the Islamic extremists wage jihad, and refer to Western countries as ‘Crusaders’. That baffles Americans, because we:
And yet, looking at the news, one is tempted to connect the dots, with Christian blood, in such a way as to wonder aloud if the ummah isn’t engaged in something akin to a ‘crusade’ against Christians. Let us not call it jihad, though. That term is copyrighted by some Imam, who will immediately contend you are misusing it. Edasurc, ‘crusade’ backwards, besides turning up some World of Warcraft character hits on Google, does not appear to have any previous usage. Therefore, let us define that to mean the (occasionally violent, even murderous) animosity toward Christianity on display in various Muslim countries toward unarmed Christians.
It was strange to be in Kabul, and go to the military chapel of a Sunday, sing hymns, and hear excellent preaching, and to recall that, outside the walls of New Kabul Compound, one could be forced to pay the ultimate price for that.
A fellow Baptist like Ron Paul might balk at U.S. involvement in supporting people in foreign countries who are being butchered. But, as with these Nigerians in today’s outrage, the Copts in Egypt, or the Jews in Europe in the last century, we have a gnawing question: what is the body count at which one triggers that possible Burke line:
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
There really is no formula to compute the crossover point. It’s a matter of context and leadership. Nevertheless, I should expect our serious GOP candidates to offer some kind of policy. On the playground of world religions, there is exactly one bully. Whoever thinks that bully can be appeased is a fool, and needs to have their foolishness escorted away from levers of power. Whether calling that bullying ‘Edasurc’ helps elevate the problem in the public debate, I have no idea. But the body count from Edasurc keeps rising.
by Smitty
Do you remember John Dennis, brought to national attention by this Ladd Ehlinger outing?
I just got a phone call from his campaign, and he’s running in 2012. Granted, his numbers are even rougher than Patrick Murray’s against Jim Moran, but the struggle against the Ruling Class Overlords permits no rest.
by Smitty
IoawHawk called it a “Last minute entry sweeps Stupidest F’ing Thing You Will Read This Year awards”.
Neil Clark blazes beyond beclownment bounds:
No one questions that Havel, who went to prison twice, was a brave man who had the courage to stand up for his views. Yet the question which needs to be asked is whether his political campaigning made his country, and the world, a better place.
Havel’s anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive achievements of the regimes of eastern Europe in the fields of employment, welfare provision, education and women’s rights. Or the fact that communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first.
Really, Eastern European realms?
Read the whole thing. Just another fact-free, purely emotional appeal. Do remember: China and North Korea are still Communist. You can go there and get your Marxism totally on, baby.
by Smitty
The blogs have been on about Eric “The Bolder” Holder’s NYT interview, where he few a Hail Jerry* and said that:
The Daily Caller quotes Allen West, who:
. . .said Holder’s use of race as a way to attack his critics is “the most insidious thing I ever heard.”
“I grew up in the United States military and it’s not about your color, it’s about your competence, it’s about your abilities to execute a mission,” West said. “If your commanding officer turns heat on you, it’s because you have failed to achieve the mission and I think what we’re doing is we’re looking at something that was a very horrible program — this Operation Fast and Furious.”
Extensive research by this blog’s layers of fact checkers shows that neither the gross incompetence, nor the starkly ideological mindset, nor the generally peevish demeanor of the Attorney General or #OccupyResoluteDesk has any genetic component. They must have been nurtured to suck; nature is having none of it.
via Hot Air
*California Governor Jerry Brown, the Patron ‘Aint of used-up Lefties, who managed to run for office in a place sufficiently effed to elect him.
— compiled by Wombat-socho
Bring The Heat, Bring The Stupid kicks off this week’s roundup with Salma Hayek. Postaldog returns with Eve Ellis, some aspiring models, and Jessica James Clement. The POH Diaries can’t get enough Kate Upton (or Christina Hendricks), while Fishersville Mike is all about the Christmas Spirit. The Rio Norte Line featured Anna Torv, Missy Peregrym, Pooja Misrra, and a first in bra advertising. The Daily Bayonet debuts with Amanda Righetti, and The Pegu Blog returns this week with this generation’s hostess with the mostest. Randy’s Roundtable’s midweek break babe is Diana Morales, followed by Kelly Brook. Eye of Polyphemus lights on Bar Rafaeli, while Laughing Conservative went with Emily Ratajkowski. Reaganite Republican has a revue of the best legs in the GOP, while Jake Finnegan’s Burkalesque Babe was the appropriately (un)wrapped Irina Shayk.
A View From The Beach last week featured Hilary Duff, a sudden appreciation of inertia, Surfin’ Safari, and Plan B, featuring an appropriate (sic) motivational poster.
Proof Positive served up Estella Warren, vintage babe Joan Collins, some sex in advertising, and the obligatory 49ers cheerleader.
Soylent Green went with Milla for his Monday Motivationer, followed by Jaclyn Swedberg, Melanie Meijer, a corset pic buried under some AGW shenanigans, tits & tats, a decade of Dalene, and a PSA for senior snoochers.
This past week at The Camp of the Saints, it was Randi Ingerman, the Rule 5 News, and Rossella Brescia. Dustbury has three lovelies this week: Anna Chlumsky, Chiquinquira Delgado, and Jennifer O’Neill. Maggie’s Notebook offers Daniela Pestova, while the Jerseynut returns with a link to some Santa Babes. Pirate’s Cove links with the Sunday Pin-up and a Gorbal Warmening PSA.
Last but not least, the DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes, who included random babes, lap dances for the needy, Bianca Beauchamp, Lisa Matthews, a Rule 5 Roundup, Anggun, and K.D. Aubert
Thanks to everyone for their links! Deadline for next week’s Boxing Day Rule 5 is Saturday, December 24.
by Smitty
Politico:
We argued in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that President Barack Obama should stand down and let Secretary of State Hillary Clinton run as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2012.
We are now calling on Democratic voters nationally — particularly in New Hampshire — to organize a write-in campaign for Clinton. This is something that New Hampshire voters have a long history of doing.
We advocate this Draft Hillary movement not because of the desire to make political mischief — but to put the country on the right course.
Sure: I hope it works, though I can’t imagine #OccupyResoluteDesk actually letting Hillary gain any traction.
The amusement is that anybody would think Hillary would be any better as POTUS. She’d probably play less golf, and take cheaper vacations, granted. Substantially, she seems to deliver from the same crypto-Marxist deck as BHO.
More at Hot Air, and also Memorandum.
via No Quarter