The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Yet Another Failure by Rick Perry (And Notes on the Carter-ization of Obama)

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 13 Comments

“The simplest way to define conservatism is this: The belief that liberalism is wrong.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 15, 2009

The Texas governor has failed to eradicate the few remaining “pockets” of Democrat Party “enthusiasm” in the Lone Star State, according to liberal Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress:

I’m prepared to say that I was surprised to discover substantial pockets of enthusiasm for President Obama among the population of Texas. Not Austin hipsters, either. Decent grownup family people. White southerners with accents, even. Frustrated, to be sure, with the overall situation but also alarmed by the extremism of a Michelle Bachmann and generally inclined to see today’s problems as part of the Bush legacy. If I were to generalize from the sample of people I happened to discuss national politics with, I’d say that Rick Perry is in a surprising amount of trouble in his home state.

Via Maggie’s Notebook, who provides a map to help Texas Republicans locate and wipe out the few remaining Democratic bastions:

What inspired this outbreak of silliness was a Washington Post column by Richard Cohen:

Over the Labor Day weekend, I went to a number of events in the Hamptons. At all of them, Obama was discussed. At none of them — that’s none — was he defended. That was remarkable. After all, sitting around various lunch and dinner tables were mostly Democrats. Not only that, some of them had been vociferous Obama supporters, giving time and money to his election effort. They were all disillusioned.
Let me call the roll. I am talking about are writers and editors, lawyers and shrinks, Wall Street tycoons and freelance photographers, hedge funders and academics, run-of-the-mill Democrats and Democratic activists. They were all politically sophisticated, and just a year ago some of them were still vociferous Obama supporters. No more.

What does this mean? Yglesias wants us to believe it means nothing, that Cohen is just over-generalizing based on a small sample of anecdotal contacts. But I would argue that what Cohen is seeing, and what Yglesias doesn’t want to see, is evidence of the Carter-ization of Obama.

Yglesias is too young to remember exactly how and why Jimmy Carter’s presidency failed. After eight years of GOP control of the White House, liberals in 1976 very much wanted to see a Democratic presidency succeed. And when Carter’s policies quickly proved unpopular, liberals blamed Carter personally.

This personalization of blame was to some extent legitimate. Behind his trademark toothy smile and his soft-spoken “trust me” rhetoric, Carter was a very thin-skinned and arrogant man. The staff he brought with him to the White House — Jody Powell, Ham Jordan, et al. — seemed to have the idea they could push around senior Democrats in Congress. Grumbles about the political incompetence of the Carter administration were heard long before the failure of Carter’s policies became apparent. Another factor in liberals scapegoating Carter, however, was their refusal to recognize how Carter’s failures represented a failure of liberalism, per se.

Liberals believe that liberalism is right. They believe that liberal policies should be both successful and popular.

So when the Carter administration proved to be a policy disaster, and when that disaster led to political unpopularity for Democrats — the party that defines the meaning and embodies the spirit of liberalism in America — liberals were faced with a choice: Admit the failures of liberalism, or find an explanatory excuse.

The scapegoating of Carter was the convenient excuse that permitted liberals to avoid confronting the evidence that liberalism had failed.

As such, it was a continuation of the excuse-making that had attended the collapse of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society consensus in the 1960s. Liberals offered numerous excuses for LBJ’s failures, claiming for example that Johnson’s policy of “escalation” in Vietnam represented an abandonment, rather than a continuation, of JFK’s policies. Liberals used the Vietnam debacle to assert that LBJ wasn’t really a liberal, and portrayed the implosion of the Democratic coalition under Johnson as entirely a product of anti-war sentiment.

Yet LBJ had been a liberal his entire political career. His policies, both foreign and domestic, were formulated by liberal advisors and endorsed by liberals in Congress. When LBJ failed, however, the failure was attributed to LBJ and not to liberalism.

So, too, with Carter and so now with Obama, as Richard Cohen observes:

The Hamptons are a redoubt of New York liberalism. . . . I expected more than a few people to defend the president. No one did. Everyone — and I do mean everyone — expressed disappointment in him as a leader. In that area, they thought he was a bust. Some articulated detailed critiques — the nature of his stimulus program, for instance. They argued that more money should have gone into long-term infrastructure programs. Most, though, skipped the details and just registered dismay: Where had their “change” agent gone?
In general, Obama was faulted for lacking political skills.

See? It is a lack of “political skills” — a failure attributed to Obama personally — that liberals identify as an excuse, rather than daring to think the unthinkable: Obama is failing because liberalism doesn’t work.

They can’t allow themselves to think that, because if they did, they wouldn’t be liberals anymore.


Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012, Liberals, Rick Perry, Texas

The ‘Stache Is Dashed

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

Costa at the NRO relays the news that John Bolton has declined to run for POTUS in 2012. To my way of thinking, this positions him for Secretary of State.

Category: Election 2012

What’s the Matter With Kansas?

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 22 Comments

Nothing at all, as evidenced by these billboards Dan Blatt saw on I-70 near Fort Riley:

SCOAMF. IYKWIMAKITYD.

Category: Barack Obama, Kansas

I Just Want You To Know That We’re All Depending On You, Driscoll

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Ed Driscoll, emphasis mine:

By last month though, Obama was reduced to shadowing the GOP presidential candidates in the Darth Vader Battle Bus and posing for pictures at the NOAA war room, complete with his plastic name tag on his desk reminding voters — and by now, maybe Obama himself — that he’s still the POTUS. Roger Kimball described the latter photo-op as Obama’s Dukakis in the Tank moment. Totaled-up, last month’s efforts really did make all of the 2008-era imagery look even sillier in retrospect; a zillion dollar Cecil B. DeMille biblical production as reimagined by the producers of Airplane. Surely you can’t be serious, Mr. President.

Interestingly, if you get the Police Squad DVD, Leslie Nielsen notes in an interview that the reason the same slapstick comedy which succeeded for Airplane failed for Police Squad was because in the television format, you actually have to watch the show. For a movie, you’ve bought into being attentive by sitting down; however, either the TV audience is less committed or of lower caliber.

Politics ain’t comedy. The lesson of 2008 is that you can put on a spectacle and win an election. You hold the public attention by being ‘shiny’. The fact that the same spectacle fails to unfold properly when stretch out to a full-on Administration is the fault of neither the predecessor nor the audience. Rather, it’s the abjectly moronic notion that spectacle is politics. Spectacle requires something shiny, not leadership. As we are now witnessing, failure, too, is a form of spectacle. Or kabuki, if you like.

Maybe that’s the only trick this pony knows.

Category: Barack Obama

Crash Time

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Among the tacit benefits of children is the reminder that, though the current situation is as attractive as the north end of a south-bound mule, said mule will eventually get somewhere else. It’s gonna be OK.

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

LIVE AT FIVE 09.07.11

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Obama To Announce $300 Billion Jobs Package

Months of bad economic news damage confidence in his economic ability

Money to be raised by budget cuts, according to “sources cited by CNN” as Obama seeks to mollify GOP budget hawks

Gunman Kills Five, Self In  IHOP Rampage
Dead include three National Guards


Texas Fire Toll Up To 1000 Homes
1200 firefighters battle blaze, many from out of state



POLITICS
California Supremes Side With Prop 8 Backers?

California Supreme Court justices, now including Goodwin Liu

Backers of gay marriage ban proposition may have standing to defend Prop 8 in court if state declines

Undeclared Warren Lags Scott Brown By 9 Points



Romney Lays Out “Believe In America” Plan; Would Create 11.5 Million Jobs

Big Sis Says Shoes-On Screening May Be Coming

John Edwards Seeks Dismissal Of Criminal Charges

Senate GOP Blocks Cordray’s Appointment To Consumer ProtectionBureau

Starbucks CEO Campaigns To End Washington Gridlock



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Yahoo Fires Carol Bartz Over The Phone; Former CEO Blindsided By Firing
Asia Stocks Rebound From Three-Day Drop As Aussie Dollar Rises And Gold Falls
White House Proposes Plan To Save Postal Service
Groupon IPO Plans In Flux
Treasury 10-Year Yields Rise As Stocks Advance
Chevron Strikes Oil In Deepwater Gulf Site
Crude Gains On Expected Storm-Induced Stockpile Drop
TechCrunch Can’t Live With Or Without You, Michael Arrington
Sprint Files Lawsuit To Block AT&T, T-Mobile Merger
Microsoft Flips “Kill Switch” On Hacked SSL Certificates With Windows Update
ROK Regulators Raid Google’s Seoul Offices
Dell To Make Baidu Smartphones For PRC Market
Judge Says Apple May Have To Show iPad Sales To Bar Samsung Tablets From Australia



SPORTS
Strasburg Comes Back Big, But So Do Dodgers In 7-3 Win

Stephen Strasburg returns to the major leagues

Nats’ bullpen fails to hold 3-0 lead

Jeff Gordon Holds On In Atlanta For 85th Win

16-Team College Conferences Come With Baggage

Jaguars Release QB Garrard

NBA, Players Union Set Meeting For Today

Reds Need 13 Innings To Beat Cubs

Red Sox Return To Form With 14-0 Thrashing Of Toronto



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
The Grotesque “Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills” Premiere

Taylor Armstrong

Suicide and a very awkward dinner

It’s Official: Eddie Murphy To Host 84th Annual Academy Awards

Four Actors Sign To Online “One Life To Live”, Lucci Turns Down Offer For Revived “All My Children”

“Expendables 2” Shoots For Encore As Schwarzenegger, Willis Join Stallone

Miley Cyrus Thanks Joan Jett For Never Apologizing

Soulja Boy Apologizes For Dissing The Troops

Carol Burnett Returns To “All My Children”

Lindsay Lohan Taking Shoplifting Classes; Community Service, Not So Much

Miss Colombia Called Out For Going Commando In Miss Universe Appearances



FOREIGNERS
Nine Killed, 47 Injured In Delhi Attack
Obama Calls On Libya’s Neighbors To Detain Fleeing Qaddafi Loyalists
Plan Would Keep Small Force In Iraq Past Deadline
Suicide Bombers Target Top Pakistani Security Official
Amid Tensions With Israel, Turkey Threatens Increased Naval Presence



BLOGS & STUFF
Michelle Malkin: How Obama Protects The Teamsters
Maggie’s Notebook: Surprise! Obama Popular In Texas
Weasel Zippers: Propaganda Minister Jay Carney Says Obama’s Ratings Are Tanking Because Of Washington
Bill McGurn: The President’s Speech Impediment
Victor Davis Hanson: Credibility On The Decline
Lonely Conservative: SanFran Wants Nudists To Use A Towel When They Sit
Verum Serum: Brad Friedman, Mother Jones, Alternet Falsely Claim Charles Koch Called Obama “Saddam Hussein”
JammieWearingFool: Illinois To Lay Off Thousands Of State Workers
Jonah Goldberg: Now That’s Grade-A Hack Work
Ed Driscoll: Guerrilla Warriors In The Mist
Bob Owens: Gunwalker Explodes Into The Heartland
AmSpecBlog: Stimulus No More
Via Media: In Defense Of Angela Merkel
Cafe Hayek: The Curious Task


SOTD: Career Of Evil

Category: Live at Five

Raaaaacist Tea Parties: The Frankenstein Vampire Werewolf Zombie Argument

Posted on | September 6, 2011 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

A post by Sooper Mexican, who is a jolly hoot on Twitter, BTW, makes an interesting point about raaaaacism.

As we get nearer the 2012 election, and the Obama administration gets more desperate, we’re going to see more of the racecard accusations against the GOP and the Tea Party in order to shore up the 81% support from African-Americans, which has fallen from 95%.

This serves a triple purpose – to pacify African-American anger at the fact that their unemployment is reaching crisis levels, to re-direct that anger from rightfully criticizing the failing policies of the Obama administration, and to falsely accuse the greatest enemy of the Left, the Tea Party.

Sooper’s post, to summarize, pokes a hole in the Left’s logic by noting that, while approval of the Tea Parties varies widely across the several states, the black/white unemployment ratio holds unexpectedly constant. That is, if Tea Party racism were prevalent, we might expect to see black unemployment higher in states where the Tea Party is popular.

I’d like to come at the point that the Left is full of hooey from a Veterans angle, if I may. The military both offers a reasonable cross-section of American society, and I can tell you from a personal experience since 1987, really doesn’t care AT ALL about your ethnicity. I mean that at the actual unit level. Go watch Restrepo. It’s folks from all over who are more concerned with not eating a Taliban bullet than fretting about whose great-grandfather did what to whom. That is the reality.

Also anecdotally, the percentage of Tea Partiers who are veterans is quite high. I’ll venture, without backup, that somewhere between a quarter and a half of people at Tea Party events have supported and defended the Constitution of the United against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And yet, this Administration has officially viewed military veterans as right-wing extremists. This is essentially a code word for Nazis, since smearing conservatives with the fascist brush has been a long-term project of the Left. Lefties who object to that point are welcome to try to come up with counter-arguments.

Summarizing:

  1. The military is a representative sample of America, and raaaaacism is something that has been minimized.
  2. Veterans have actively been demonized by the Administration.
  3. The Tea Parties have a substantial military presence.
  4. The Tea Parties are being attacked as raaaaacist.
  5. It is strongly dissonant, and nearly contradictory, to assert that people who’ve devoted chunks of their lives (temporally and occasionally physically) defending liberty would suddenly condone or engage in raaaaacist activities.
  6. Conclusion: the Left is wrong, insulting, and dishonorable. Furthermore, this insult continues to be recycled, in the utter absence of factual basis.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope for a change in the Left’s tone, either. Speaking only for myself, and not for the rest of the military, I’m at the point where I view these guys like flag burners. I’m protecting their Constitutional privelege to distort the truth mercilessly. They can say whatever they want here on Earth. They can recycle deceit endlessly, like cheap moster movie villains. One day, in the fulness of time, they will meet the Almighty.

Category: Uncategorized

In the Future, Everyone Will Be a GOP Political Strategist for 15 Minutes

Posted on | September 6, 2011 | 31 Comments

That Warhol-esque prophecy is inspired by Meredith Jessup’s post about Sarah Palin yesterday at The Blaze:

There’s no doubt that Palin has become a political rock star/powerhouse, but conservatives recognize that the best place for her to make a difference is using her voice as an advocate, not a politician.

This is where I play the “I’ve got ties older than you, kid” card against Jessup, who was still pooping in Pampers when I began my journalism career in 1986. What is it with these know-it-all kids nowadays, huh?

Nothing against Jessup personally, you understand, but rather to reiterate my long-held view that it is a major symptom of the decline of Western Civilization when 20-somethings consider themselves qualified to lecture their elders on How It Ought to Be.

Perhaps others are less sensible of the insulting disrespect involved in being lectured in this manner by callow youth. Perhaps there are some conservatives who are amused by the impudent precocity whereby a kid four years out of college (yeah, I checked) presumes to tell the former governor of Alaska what “the best place for her” is. And even dares do so ex cathedra, as though authorized to speak on behalf of conservatives!

Part of what’s going on here, of course, is the democratizing effect of the Internet, where everyone with a WiFi connection imagines himself the Second Coming of Bill Buckley.

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” and in the blogosphere, nobody is supposed to care about seniority or credentials. All onlne opinions are created equal, and we are expected to pretend it doesn’t matter whether the person offering a political opinion is the chairman of the Republican National Committee or a sales clerk at Old Navy.

That is only part of what’s going on here, however. The other part is the rancid aftermath of the Sixties “youth movement,” when Jerry Rubin declared that kids shouldn’t trust anyone over 30. More than four decades later, that once-radical attitude of automatic disrespect toward one’s elders has diffused itself throughout society so that we find it even among young Republicans who don’t think twice before telling Sarah Palin what her “place” should be.

Younger readers will have to forgive my excursion into grizzled curmudgeon mode. When I was 27 years old, I was earning $250 a week as a small-town sports editor and wouldn’t have dreamed of telling a high-school football coach who he should start at tailback or what play he should call on third down.

But that was before All Gore invented the Internet, back in the Dark Ages when precocious geniuses were exceedingly rare, and few of them were paid to lecture their foolish elders for a living. Nowadays it seems these brilliant young lecturers are everywhere, and us old folks must learn to respect their superior wisdom.

Category: Culture
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