"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
by Smitty (h/t Tatler)
If the early returns on Althouse’s poll hold steady, people are ready to vote against The WhiOne. The contrast couldn’t be much more stark between BHO and T-Paw. Are we ready for somebody with competence, experience and human warmth, without so much egomania? I’m willing to say yes.
(This time, I’m cereal)
Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints, with more T-Paw goodness.
by Smitty
SOL/Puffington Host reports that Governor Pawlenty has retained some Canuck named Baiano to improve the cut of his jib:
Lucas Baiano, a 23-year-old former Hillary Clinton supporter, is Canadian-born and dresses in perfectly-starched white shirts, slim-fitting sports jackets and tight designer jeans.
His job is to make Pawlenty appear larger than life. And he’s good at it.
I don’t know what unplugged knob of a consultant argued for that call, but how did you overlook His Laddness, the Laddage, the Guy With The Ladd Attitude?
This is not the time for ‘Minnesota Nice’, Governor. The country is on the ropes. Full tilt boogie, sir.
Update: Now, I guess you can logically assert that ‘full tilt boogie’ might imply playing the Dale Peterson card. But it need not necessarily do that. Without resorting to a firearm, for example, Tim Pawlenty could be dressed in hockey gear and doing a high-speed slalom down the ice with a puck through a forest of teleprompters. Quotations from any Barely Honest Onager that comes to mind could be scrolling up the prompters as Pawlenty maneuvers. After navigating them, Pawlenty faces a lone goalie. Pawlenty does a sliding, lunging shot on goal and scores.
He gets up and collects himself, and skates over to the goalie. The goalie removes his mask, revealing Wayne Gretzky.
Gretzky: “Yeah, that was OK, but stick to politics.”
by Smitty
I didn’t write a novel, true, but I did just finished reading Tim Pawlenty’s book, and I must confess some mystification.
The book is a great read. Pawlenty comes off as a seasoned, sharp, dedicated leader. He reveals a deep faith, for the social conservatives. Believers in the Progressive Faith will call him ‘Huckabee Light’. The Romney fans will point out the lack of Northeast credentials. The Palin fans will attack a perceived charisma deficit. The Gingrich fan will look left and right, note the solitude, and point out that at least Newt had a title cribbed by the POTUS. WTF, indeed.
Past all that noise, Pawlenty’s book starts out as Minnesota Governor being handed a total crap sandwich of a budget from his predecessor, and doing the responsible thing despite massive opposition.
This is a prototype for the kind of yeoman work the next POTUS will have to do. The DFL is confined to Minnesota, but the Federal hydra will be an even tougher beast to fight. Some will say ‘Pawlenty who?’ and decry a lack of soaring rhetoric and charisma. Well, how has that worked out for us? Success will come when we get past the Alinsky need to personalize everything. We don’t need a rock star, or an orator, or an entertainer. We need a competent, humble leader of the Pawlenty stripe.
I look forward to supporting Pawlenty, now that the current POTUS has kicked off the 2012 season. Pawlenty’s record answers the mail on virtually every point that the Left can bring up, with the exception of foreign policy. [Aside: pray for peace. The future seems less stable than ever.]
Tim Pawlenty totally merits consideration. Sarah fan though I am, the Left continues to pile up the negatives on her and poison the well. Sure, it’s intellectually dishonest, and we’ll support her as far as she decides to go, but there it is. The lying bastards who go on about ‘fairness’ are themselves the least fair of the lot. Did Shakespeare predict her coming triumph? I don’t think so, either, but maybe the Bard knew something we do not.
In contrasting Sarah to Tim, I’m deeply respectful of both people for their courageous stands in the face of dishonest opposition. Pawlenty’s book recalled the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, and the media frenzy to connect conservative policy to the tragedy. Maybe Sarah and Tim can flip a coin to see who occupies the upper portion of the ticket.
Oh, and just to pile on Stacy’s earlier post about Gentleman Jim Moran: watch out Moran, the conservatives are coming for you. I haven’t heard if Patrick Murray will run again or not, but VA-8 is ready to see the odious Moran retire.
“Krystal Violet Norby, a 25-year-old Minnesota woman was jailed after she allegedly photographed herself having sex with two children and a dog. . . .”
by Smitty
“. . .especially where the ideas of Rousseau are linked,” to paraphrase ol’ Jean Jacques.
If Kabul was a movie, it would be Groundhog Day. I can’t lay any claim to the big picture, but I hope all the blood and treasure invested here amounts to something.
The tempermental WiFi service was OK the other day, and I bought Pawlenty’s book after its mention on Insty. Continue reading ‘Man Was Born Free, And He Is Everywhere In Chains. . .’ →
“I’ve scooped brains out of buckets, I’ve counted dendrites in slices cut from the brains of dead babies. You want to make me back down by trying to inspire revulsion with dead baby pictures? I look at them unflinchingly and see meat. And meat does not frighten me.”
— Paul Z. Myers, University of Minnesota biology professor
UPDATE: Linked by Sister Toldjah — thanks! — and by Doug at Daley Gator, who sees “moral retardation” at work. Both relate this to the heinous case of Kermit Gosnell and, as further proof of his fanatical blindness, Professor Myers declared of the “house of horrors” in Philadelphia: “This is not about abortion.”
Ed Morrissey reports that Gosnell has been denied bail, and calls to our attention Michelle Malkin’s column explaining how the politics of “choice” made the Philadelphia horror possible:
[T]he grand jury itself pointed out that loosened oversight of abortion clinics enacted under pro-choice former GOP governor Tom Ridge enabled Gosnell’s criminal enterprise – and led to the heartless execution of hundreds of babies. Mass murder got a pass in the name of expanding “access” and appeasing abortion lobbyists. As the report made clear: “With the change of administration from [pro-life Democrat] Governor Casey to Governor Ridge,” government health officials “concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”
Read the rest of that. As for Professor Myers and other academic propagandists of the Culture of Death, I remind you of Abraham Lincoln’s remark that “the philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” And godlessness has been the official philosophy of American schools for more than one generation.
UPDATE II: Vox Day:
This is the naked face of atheism, ladies and gentlemen. Look on it well and remember it, because it usually doesn’t dare to show its disgusting and anti-human nature so openly.
Maybe you want to read the extremely graphic Philadelphia grand jury report on Gosnell’s house of horrors. Or maybe it will suffice to see the jars of baby feet kept in the abortionist’s clinic.
Today is, after all, “Ask Them What They Mean by ‘Choice’ Day.” And there is a Memeorandum thread.
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . .
— Romans 1:21-22 (KJV)
Vox Day quoted from that famous passage in describing the auto-beclownment of University of Minnesota biology professor Paul Z. Myers — a self-proclaimed “godless liberal” — who like a lot of other godless liberals was utterly wrong about the Tucson shooting:
Professor Myers went on to call Sarah Palin “a vile creature” and accused her of ” inciting the deranged a–holes who follow her.” When called out for his malicious libel, Professor Myers doubled down:
This is NOT the time to back down and suddenly find it embarrassing to point out that right-wing pundits make a living as professional goads to insanity. . . .
Do not sit there cowering, trying to make excuses for teabaggers and violent morons. This is supposed to be the part where you stand up, look at the shouters on the other side, and tell them, “This is wrong, and this is the harm you bring to our country.”
In other words, no matter what vicious lies the “godless liberal” perpetrates, his comrades must defend his infamous falsehoods because . . . well, the Ends Justify The Means, and the road to a secular Utopia will necessarily be paved with the bones of the Enemies of Social Justice. This brutal logic, the demand that everyone must toe the line, that any tactic — even outright falsehood — is defensible so long as it advances the radical cause, is inherent to totalitarianism, which must silence dissent By Any Means Necessary.
That an arrogant fool like Professor Paul Z. Myers is a government employee, paid to instruct the impressionable minds of Minnesota’s young people, ought to give pause to citizens of that state. Continue reading ‘Vain in Their Imaginations’
God-Haters and the Tucson Massacre →
Because you know how those Minnesota Lutherans are:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Twenty-nine people have been indicted in a sex trafficking ring in which Somali Lutheran gangs in Minneapolis and St. Paul allegedly forced girls under age 14 into prostitution in Minnesota, Tennessee and Ohio, according to an indictment unsealed Monday. . . .
The indictment details several instances in which young Somali or African American Lutheran girls were taken from place to place and forced to engage in sex acts with multiple people. One girl was under 13 when she was first prostituted. Another girl was 18 when she was raped by multiple men in a hotel room, the indictment said. . . .
The indictment claims the ring involved three Minneapolis-based gangs — the Somali Lutheran Outlaws, the Somali Lutheran Mafia and the Lady Outlaws Lutherans — and that all three gangs are connected. The men and women charged were either gang members or associates of the gangs, the indictment said. They range in age from 19 to 38. . . .
Damned Lutherans! Meanwhile, in Virginia, they’re getting ready for trials of Lutheran pirates.