The Other McCain

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

Pacifism and Historical Ignorance

Posted on | May 28, 2011 | 12 Comments

“For a therapeutically inclined generation raised on Oprah and Dr. Phil — and not on the letters of William Tecumseh Sherman and William Shirer’s Berlin Diary — problems between states, like those in our personal lives, should be argued about by equally civilized and peaceful rivals, and so solved without resorting to violence.”
— Victor Davis Hanson, “Why Study War?” City Journal

When I was a kid, we often sang the old spiritual “Down by the Riverside,” the refrain of which ended, “Ain’t gonna study war no more.”

Of course, this lyric was a reference to “the last days” as prophesied by Micah, when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Some 2,700 years later, war is still as relevant a topic of study as ever, especially for the nation to whom Micah prophesied. Yet the modern sensibility — with its heaven-on-earth dreams of secular salvation — condemns all things military as a violation of the doctrine of non-violence, as though Israel might defend herself by adopting the pacifism of Thoreau and Gandhi, against enemies fanatically devoted to bloody creeds of Arab nationalism and Islamic jihad.

This pacifist utopianism has long prevailed among the elite in Europe, and was a proximate cause of World War II, as Neville Chamberlain and his cronies could no more believe Hitler meant what he said in Mein Kampf than today’s deluded dreamers of Mideast peace can believe that Hamas and Hezbollah mean what they have said about the destruction of Israel.

Professor William Jacobson is not among the deluded, and I am obligated to his Legal Insurrection blog not only for calling attention to Hanson’s City Journal article, but also for reminding us of the infamous U.N. Resolution 3379: “[T]he Palestinian agenda always has been about denying Israel’s legitimacy, and the U.N. has been the primary forum.” Professor Jacobson also provides this powerful video of Daniel Patrick Moyihan’s condemnation of Resolution 3379:

Category: Israel, Legal Insurrection, Military, United Nations

Awesome Fireworks Videos

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 3 Comments

This show in the Hannover International Fireworks Competition in Germany was produced by the Gotteburg factory from Sweden.

And here’s a compilation of finale effects:

Category: Fireworks, Sweden, Video

So, Sarah Palin Is Not Running. . .
A Traditional Campaign

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 26 Comments

by Smitty

I’m upgrading my Sarah Palin prediction from “not not running” to “not running a traditional campaign”. Ann Althouse looks at the scoffings of the Romney and Pawlenty campaigns, griping that Sarah is not following the conventional path, and then invokes Fred Thompson.
Ah, Fred.
The interesting question becomes whether the GOP will, petulantly, scuttle the chances of ejecting BHO rather than fall in behind a potential Palin candidacy. In other words, will the commitment to the traditional, broken, Ruling Class way be stronger in the GOP than the desire to, you know, live up to the party’s ideals?
The fact that this question even forms in the mind is why I’m pleased not to be a registered Republican. About as useful as the DOE, they are.
Pay close attention to that bus tour, GOP. As you go under it.

Category: Sarah Palin

Comedy Gold: Meghan McCain Blames Her Lousy Dating Life on Sarah Palin

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 110 Comments

America’s Most Famous Dumb Blonde:

Jay Leno: Are you dating anyone?
Meghan McCain: No. I’m in, like, dating Babylon. Like, I go on dates with men and, literally, like Sarah Palin will come up in like the first 20 minutes, and that doesn’t put me in the mood. Like, talking about Sarah Palin. And they just want to know gossip, and I’m just kind of taking a little hiatus from dating right now, because I just don’t want to talk about Sarah Palin.

This is the part of the blog post where normally I’d include some snarky comment about why Meghan’s dating life is really so bad.

However, recent events have caused me to reconsider my ill-advised penchant for juvenile humor. For example, it would be wrong to make fun of Meghan by suggesting that maybe she shouldn’t date guys she meets at the pharmacy while picking up her Valtrex prescription.

So I’m not going to make any jokes like that, because such crude humor would be in poor taste. However . . .

UPDATE: Just to make sure nobody ever forgets that she’s a victim, Meghan McCain reminds the New York Times:

I wake up every morning with large breasts, and it doesn’t affect me. But people had a meltdown when I posted a photo of myself on Twitter. I found such extreme sexism in it. I’ve spent as much of my career having my weight and body commented on as my writing and politics.

Oh, how horrible a fate! To “wake up every morning with large breasts”! And to be hated for it . . .

UPDATE II: While I don’t usually link Wonkette, it’s worth noting this observation: Meghan “is a multi-millionaire and gets writing jobs for which she is utterly unqualified . . . an ultra-rich Republican who is taking writing jobs away from talented non-rich people . . . her ‘writing career,’ which exists solely because her dad is a failed presidential candidate from four years ago.”

In addition to being a celebrity heiress dilettante, Meghan is also the kind of Republican who can be counted on to badmouth conservatives — the only kind of Republican the media actually likes.

UPDATE III: Welcome, Ace of Spades readers!

UPDATE IV: Linked by The Lonely Conservative and Fire Andrea Mitchell — thanks!

UPDATE V: Now a Memeorandum thread, linked by Legal Insurrection, Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin, House of Eratosthenes, Weasel Zippers and Sister Toldjah — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!


Category: Meghan McCain, Sarah Palin, Video

Media Ignores Black Woman Who Calls Palin ‘Funny, Nice and Genuinely Warm’

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 8 Comments


Angel Massey (right) and her husband Michael Massey (left) with their son, Kyle Massey.

In a recent interview with a celebrity gossip Web site, Angel Massey described how, during last season’s Dancing With the Stars, her family became friends with Sarah Palin’s family:

“Both of our families gelled during Dancing with the Stars. Sarah would be in the audience cheering for Kyle, and we’d be in the audience rooting for Bristol. We all became close.”
Mama Massey adds, “The Palins are really funny, nice and genuinely warm to us.”

Isn’t that nice? And wouldn’t you think the rest of the media would be rushing to report this neat human-interest angle about the Palin family?

Except that Angel Massey’s pro-Palin comments were included in her denial of an anti-Palin story the media likes better. Read more about “The Palin Principle of Liberal Media Ethics” at The American Spectator.

Category: Bristol Palin, Celebrities, Sarah Palin

Nate Silver: ‘Hey, You Know, Maybe We Should Take Herman Cain Seriously’

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 7 Comments

The polling savant of the New York Times takes a look at the recent Gallup numbers and is intrigued:

I would not suggest that Mr. Cain is one of the leaders. But in a field where the three insider favorites to win the race — Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Jon Huntsman — collectively poll at just 25 percent, and where some Republicans seem to be pining for an outsider (perhaps even outside-the-box) choice, he’s the freshest face.

Silver produces this very interesting graphic, illustrating the relative intensity of Cain’s support:

Which is impressive, any way you look at it. And as Caroline May reports, Democrats are now paying attention:

While conservative commentators Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove might not see Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as viable, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is keeping an eye on the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO.
While the DNC has been barraging media and supporters with alerts criticizing Republican presidential hopefuls Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Mitt Romney’s media appearances, Cain has largely been out of the mix. Last week, the DNC sent out more than 25 alerts attacking the aforementioned GOP frontrunners, not one mentioned Cain.
[Thursday], however, the committee ramped up its focus on Cain, issuing a “Rapid Response” attack against his morning “Fox and Friends” appearance, during which Cain praised the Paul Ryan budget.

What does this mean? Da Tech Guy thinks media liberals are now promoting Cain as a surreptitious way to submarine Sarah Palin.

That theory may attribute too much foresight and subtlety to the JournoList crowd. My own theory — insofar as any theory is needed to justify the overdue attention Cain is now getting — would be that political reporters are bored with the ho-hum GOP primary field and are looking for something new and exciting to write about. However you explain it, Herman Cain’s campaign has definitely gathered momentum in the past three weeks, whereas Tim Pawlenty . . . eh, not so much.

Category: Da Tech Guy, Election 2012, Herman Cain, New York Times, Polls, Tim Pawlenty

Alinsky as Rhetorical Dadaist

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Big Peace)

Andrew McCarthy in the National Review makes a perceptive point on our good President, noting how the duck-and-weave on Israel is straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. Also, that pattern is the same as what was used on ObamaCare. Emphasis mine:

Obama is an Alinskyite, though, a practical radical. Ineffective radicals are so blinded by ideology, so intoxicated by their own sense of righteousness, that they refuse to gauge the public sensibilities. Alinskyites are no less committed to their ideology; indeed, only a person who has completely bought into his ideology can maintain the patient discipline necessary to implement his utopia incrementally. That discipline is what makes the Alinskyite effective. Such an operator understands that you must always check the public pulse: Figure out how far you can push people, but never push so far that you lose political viability. Without power, radicalism is a dead end. The race is not to the swift but to the electable.
So Obama tweaked his health-care positions, pretending he’d never said the things he’d said, massaging his message depending on the sensibilities of his audience. He shrewdly banked on a press corps willing to be enlisted to his purposes, and on the natural tendency of decent people to give likeable politicians the benefit of the doubt, to assume they are not being lied to.

Sure, we like to treat people as innocent until proven guilty. Life is more efficient that way. However, technology is about to deliver a thorough spanking to the Alinsky’s collection of cunning stunts. In an era when having a politician verbally kick his own butt is as simple as splicing a series of YouTube clips together, politicians are going to have to be more forthright.

Shifts in policy opinions, e.g. RomneyCare, may be allowed, if there is a clear rationale. Wavering on something like the sanctity of human life will not do.

In BHO’s case, we’re going to see that his Alinsky tricks are like Dada: effective as long as not self-aware. Also, no one else is aware of the Alinskyisms. Now that there is an internet around, and WCFCYA, no politicians are going to get away with a 2008 triumph of style over substance again. No amount of propaganda is going to make mediocrity a big deal again. The seemingly incongruous selection of Joe ‘Effing’ Biden for VP was a tell: without the Alinskyism, the teleprompter, and the speech writers, there really isn’t much difference between BHO and Plugs.

Unfortunately, the spiritual void of Alinskyism means that there are no alternatives for BHO. When his only principle is pursuit of power, then run for President he must. He becomes the Über-lemming, driving off the cliff, all ahead full-tilt boogy, simply because he has nothing else to do with himself. It would be tragic, if it wasn’t so flipping expensive.

Category: Barack Obama

David Williams, Rand Paul and the Kentucky Tea Party Movement

Posted on | May 27, 2011 | 29 Comments

Some interesting facts: Kentucky has a Democrat governor, Steve Beshear, who is up for re-election this fall in one of the most important off-year elections in the country. Beshear is vulnerable, and his vulnerability involves issues of national relevance.

Moody’s and Fitch have downgraded the state’s bond rating because Beshear and the Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives refuse to get serious about cutting spending, instead relying on gimmicks to balance the budget year-to-year. The pension system for state employees has unfunded liabilities, and Beshear has been accused of political shenanigans with the pension system.

Last week, state Senate president David Williams won the GOP primary, “clearing the way for an expensive, no-holds-barred brawl” with Beshear in the fall campaign, as the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Now the bad news: Tea Party activists in Kentucky, who backed Louisville businessman Phil Moffett in the Republican primary, are disgruntled — sufficiently so that they’re angry at Sen. Rand Paul, who they say failed them by not supporting Moffett in the primary. Kentuckian Lisa Graas reports:

I can also report that there has been talk that some in the current Tea Party movement in Kentucky will not support the conservative Republican David Williams in the general election because their candidate did not win the primary. I know of at least one Tea Party leader (not from the Bowling Green group) who threatened Kentucky Right to Life, in his organization’s name, that if they endorsed Williams, his group would not support Williams in the general election. That is important to note because it is an example of the refusal of the current Tea Party movement to build coalitions. Williams did win the primary, by the way, and Kentucky Right to Life did endorse him. They’re not swayed by threats.

Read the whole thing, especially where Lisa talks about how in 2009 the Tea Party movement attracted “people from all walks of life, across the political spectrum, most of whom had never really been active in politics.” Read more

Category: Kentucky, Tea Party
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