Just a reminder that it’s primary day in Georgia and we’ll be watching the results for two congressional candidates we’ve been following for months: Liz Carter in the 4th District (Yank Hank!) and Ray McKinney in the 12th District (Beat Barrow!).
Andrew Sullivan Back From Vacation
You may wonder: What topic would Sully blog about Monday, having been off the grid for the past week or so?
Guess. C’mon, guess.
If you can’t guess, you’ll probably click this link. And feel ashamed of yourself for doing so.
Related: Guess who the New York Post considers an authoritative source for an anti-Palin story?
There Are Some Things That Only Democrats Can Get Away With; UPDATE: Shirley Sherrod Resigns!
Including public declarations of racial discrimination:
Speaking of rural Georgia, if you live in Georgia’s 12th District and don’t like being represented by Shirley Sherrod’s fellow Democrat John Barrow, remember to vote Tuesday for Ray McKinney, who just got endorsed by the Tea Party Express.
UPDATE: Fox News:
The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.
(Via Hot Air.) Let’s make sure we all understand the principle involved here: Obama spends 20 years in Rev. Jeremiah “G–D— America” Wright’s church, and that’s no big deal. A low-level USDA appointee says bad stuff about white people and under the bus!
Everybody Have Fun at Right Online!
My friend Steve Eggleston of No Runny Eggs blog fame asked me a question on Twitter:
Read the article for yourself: “[T]he nation’s foremost new media experts from across the country” — a list from which my name is omitted. As I explained three weeks ago:
The list of speakers for this year’s conference includes Erick Erickson and Ed Morrissey — both of whom are far more interesting than me, which is why they’re on the list and that bastard Erik Telford didn’t invite me, just like he snubbed me last year.
I might suggest that readers hit the tip jar, but I doubt you would want me to attend a conference where I am so obviously unwelcome.
Nevertheless — for your sake, dear reader — I just checked Travelocity. Even if I booked a flight today, the lowest round-trip fare would be nearly $600, but it takes three days for money to clear through PayPal after somebody hits the tip jar. This means that, by the earliest time I could get the money in my checking account, I’d be paying a premium for a last-minute ticket Thursday. (Right Online begins Friday morning at the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel.)
So the only way I could possibly afford to get to Vegas by Friday would be to drive more than 2,300 miles one-way, which would take 38 hours non-stop. That’s 4,600 miles round-trip at 20 cents a mile = $920. And I’d have to leave Wednesday night, bringing along my 17-year-old son as relief driver . . .
But that would be insane. Only a complete lunatic like Bob Belvedere would even dare suggest such a desperate last-minute expedition.
It comes down to this: Are there 20 readers in the blogosophere who would be willing to bet $50 that I’m really that crazy?
Or are there 50 people who would wager $20?
Could there possibly be 100 people who would gamble $10 on the long-shot chance that, sometime Friday, I’d roll up in front of the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel — unshaven, unbathed, wearing the same clothes I had on when I got in the car Wednesday night — toss the keys to the valet, walk into that conference and shout out, “Where’s Erik Telford?”
Maybe 200 people would pay $5 to see the look on Telford’s face?
Probably not. I’ve been on a long streak of bad luck lately. But maybe I’m due for a lucky break.
Did I Mention That My Daughter Has Made Dean’s List Every Semester?
Fortunately, because I’m not rich, there was never any danger that my daughter would darken the door of Ross Douthat’s alma mater:
“Last year, two Princeton sociologists, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford, published a book-length study of admissions and affirmative action at eight highly selective colleges and universities. Unsurprisingly, they found that the admissions process seemed to favor black and Hispanic applicants, while whites and Asians needed higher grades and SAT scores to get in. But what was striking . . . was which whites were most disadvantaged by the process: the downscale, the rural and the working-class. This was particularly pronounced among the private colleges in the study. For minority applicants, the lower a family’s socioeconomic position, the more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualifications.”
My daughter should be grateful, then, that she is “lower-class,” so she’s dean’s list at her state university (working her way through) and recently married. If I had been rich, my daughter might have gone to Harvard and become an insufferable snob like Ross Douthat.
Good Dad, Bad Dad
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents . . .
— Romans 1:30 (KJV)
Exactly why I was referring to the first chapter of Romans on Twitter is perhaps irrelevant here. At any rate, I found myself lecturing on the principles of parenthood, which I understand as well as anyone, even if I don’t always apply them consistently.
Mrs. Other McCain is often complimented on the good behavior of our children, for which she certainly deserves nearly all the credit. But I sometimes do a little bit to help.
Nothing is more important to good parenting than love. Everyone understands that. But the second most important thing is a corollary of the first: Authority.
When Mom or Dad says “jump,” the only question a child should ask is, “How high?” Children are being disobedient and disrespectful if their automatic response to such a parental command is, “Why?”
“Because I said so” is a sufficient reply to the child’s obstreporous “why?” and, if the child persists in such an impudent attitude, the parent should not hesitate to apply sterner measures — for which “because Mom is tired of hearing your backtalk” is a sufficient explanation.
You are an adult — experienced, knowledgeable and responsible — and they are children — inexperienced, ignorant and dependent. Assuming that you are a wise and loving parent concerned for your child’s well-being, then there is no legitimate reason for the child to question your judgment. You have good and sufficient reason for saying, “No, you can’t go swimming” and, perhaps more importantly, you have the authority to say so. The child is therefore disputing both your judgment and your authority if he responds, “Why?”
The key to good discipline is that its severity or leniency should never become entirely predictable to the child. Kids are smart, and if they figure out that they can push you a certain distance without risk of a swift and severe response, they’ll push you that far every time. Pretty soon, you won’t be able to get them to brush their teeth or clean up their room without constant cajoling.
Good parenting is best accomplished as a team effort, one tactical advantage of which is that it permits employment of the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” routine: If the child does not cooperate with the Good Cop, then the child will find himself dealing with the Bad Cop.
In our household — as I suspect in most families — Dad usually gets assigned to the Bad Cop role. Mom explains that she isn’t getting acceptable results from a child, and Dad plays the role of enforcer. Thus the classic motherly final warning: “Don’t make me call you father in here!”
Remember: You never want to be entirely predictable in discipline, lest the kids figure out how far they can push you.
Well, after a brief Twitter lecture on this subject, I announced to the three youngest of our children that we were going to Sheetz to get slushies. Not only did we get slushies, but we also got hot dogs and hamburgers and french fries and, for dessert, Hershey bars with almonds.
After we got back home and everyone had gotten their bellies full, I then turned off the TV and convened the children for a meeting.
“We’re going to take a vote,” I said. “Who’s the best dad in the whole world?”
“You are,” the kids muttered.
“I can’t hear you.”
“You are!” they shouted.
“That’s more like it,” I said, before proceeding to tell them that they were to wash the dishes, sweep and mop the kitchen, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Seven-year-old Reagan interrupted with some goofy giggly response.
“Excuse me, young lady,” I said, looming over her in sudden fierceness. “Maybe it’s been too long since you had a spanking.”
Maybe, indeed. Her goofy grin clearly conveyed the impression that this threat wasn’t taken seriously. And her brothers were also giggling, so now I turned my attention to them:
“And you, too! I’m serious — I want that kitchen cleaned. No arguments and no excuses! Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” they answered, nodding.
“All right, hop to it!” I said and, on my way to the stairs to return to the basement office, added: “Don’t make me have to come back up here. Get to work!”
About 15 minutes later my wife came home and, finding the kids hard at work, said to me, “Somebody wants to get lucky tonight.”
OK, I’m entirely predictable to my wife, but what do you expect after 21 years of marriage? But we have to keep the kids guessing, you see.
Sometimes, if a kid is bad enough, Mom the Good Cop will ask me to give a special performance as the ultimate Bad Cop. Imagine the child’s reaction when, without warning, the cop who walks into the interrogation room is Andy Sipowicz:
Sweet old ladies will often tell my wife, “Oh, your children are such little angels!”
My wife will accept the compliment with a thank-you and a gracious smile. Little do they know how often my wife plays the Bad Cop — and she’s twice as scary as Andy Sipowicz.
Tactics And Strategy Are Peanut Butter And Chocolate
by Smitty
Ramesh Ponnuru makes one of those points you ignore at your peril: the GOP’s been a cheerfuly party to Progressive over-reach this last century.
It’s that the fiscal future of the country does not turn on grants to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. We ought to be pressuring Republicans on the right issues.
In other words, fretting about earmarks is fine, but tangential to the real business of restoring the Federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.
One is endlessly amazed at the number of people who think that just changing the names on the doorplates will magically change the
underlying, ruinous system.
It’s 40% principles, 10% the nominal leaders enacting legislation. The other half of the battle is We The People making sure the nominal leaders don’t forget how relatively unimportant they are, down at the ballot box.
By all means, let earmarks be a litmus test of sincerity. But don’t think they’re more than a tangent at best. Principles, principles, principles. These elected officials had better either possess them, or do a fine job of simulating them.
Conservatism 101:
Never Let Your Enemies Tell You Who Your Friends Should Be
Conservative Republicans seeking political advice should not take it from a liberal Democrat like Jonathan Chait:
You don’t have to love Sue Lowden to understand that a 90% chance of Lowden winning is better than a 20% chance of Sharron Angle winning. Nor is there any recognition on the right that conservatives paved the way for health care reform by driving Specter out. In conservative lore, the Pat Toomey primary challenge remains a glorious triumph, when in fact it’s a disaster of historic proportions.
You can read the whole thing, but not without minding this important caveat: Jonathan Chait doesn’t want Republicans to win.
If Lowden had won the Nevada GOP primary, Chait would be busy-beavering arguments intended to help Harry Reid defeat Lowden. If Specter had stayed in the GOP and defeated Toomey in the primary, Chait would now be offering arguments to help Joe Sestak defeat Specter in November (as, in fact, the New Republic did throughout the Democratic primary).
Long ago — in February 2009, when the Tea Party movement was just being born — I explained this fundamental issue:
Among the ill effects of liberal bias in the media is that much political “news” amounts to thinly disguised DNC talking-points. The conservative must learn to think critically about news and politics, to filter out that which is misleading, or else he will internalize the funhouse-mirror distortions of reality that define the liberal weltanschauung. . . .
[O]ne of the major problems of the Republican Party, that so many of its supporters have unwittingly accepted liberal beliefs as political truths. . . .
The GIGO principle (Garbage In, Garbage Out) is as applicable to political discourse as to any other information system. If you let liberals like Chait tell you which Republican candidates you should support, you will never support any Republican candidate — except in a GOP primary, when liberals will invariably tell you to support the most liberal candidate on the ballot. As soon as the primary is over, however, your liberal friends will then return to their usual arguments of why you should vote Democrat. Sic semper hoc.
It may well be, as a source tells Ben Smith, that the Nevada GOP primary was a “total f*** up by the state and national Republicans” — Never underestimate the incompetence of the Republican establishment being another basic lesson of Conservatism 101 — but that is neither here nor there as to the task at hand, namely, defeating Harry Reid.
Chait and his friends are trying to do what liberals in the media always do, shape Conventional Wisdom to their own advantage.
“Sharron Angle Can’t Win” is the Meme-O’-Th’-Day, and liberals are going to pound it as hard and as long as they can. Why? Because they know that a lot of Republicans base their political decisions on Conventional Wisdom so that, by promoting this Angle-Is-Doomed message, liberals will erode support for Harry Reid’s opponent — especially from the Dumb and Rich Coalition who comprise the GOP’s big-money donors.
Sharron Angle can win, and should win, and will win, so long as the conservative grassroots don’t allow themselves to be bamboozled into believing the liberal Conventional Wisdom.
Obviously, you can’t expect the Dumb and Rich to write any fat checks to make that happen, so it’s up to the grassroots to give those small donations — $10, $20, $50 — that will add up to match the millions Harry Reid gets from his Democratic fat-cat friends.