Kiana came up with the idea, based on personality and size difference, to do a Cat in the Hat theme. It was perfect.
Kids come home with such a haul these days. We had half a pillowcase full of candy when it was all said and done. And someone in the neighborhood was giving out money - can you tell we live close to the Federal Government?
This octopus can juggle crabs, rearrange a room, throw rocks, shoot out lights, and short circuit an aquarium. And that’s just when he’s bored.
Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.
The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.
A spokesman said: “It was a serious matter because it shorted the electricity supply to the whole aquarium that threatened the lives of the other animals when water pumps ceased to work.
“It was on the third night that we found out that the octopus Otto was responsible for the chaos.
“We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out a the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water.”
Director Elfriede Kummer who witnessed the act said: “We’ve put the light a bit higher now so he shouldn’t be able to reach it. But Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him - and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.
“Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better - much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.”
Not saying I’m going Baldwin, but I’m certainly considering it:
In Australia, Arius returns:
“No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that,” Bathurst priest Fr Peter Dresser argues in a booklet on sale in several Catholic parishes, including South Brisbane’s St Mary’s.
“This whole matter regarding Jesus being God … not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point for millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion … No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that,” Fr Dresser of Coonamble argues, a report in The Australian says.
Of course, not content to simply deny the 1683-year-old concept of the Homoousios, other priests from the area like eradicating the lines between the ordained and baptismal priesthood:
The Australian says St Mary’s priests, Fr Peter Kennedy and Fr Terry Fitzpatrick have also canvassed the idea of Catholics celebrating the Eucharist in their homes without a priest.
A discussion paper handed to parishioners by Fr Kennedy and written by Charles Kelliher said the lack of priests in the 21st century should prompt the faithful to look back to the first 200 years of the cCurch [sic], before the priesthood and the Church hierarchy came into existence.
“Like the house church of the first 200 years, it is the community of believers who can concelebrate and bring about the presence of Christ in the eucharistic celebration. Let us embark on the journey as a community of believers in the modern day house church.
“The community of believers would call forth one of its members to preside at this memorial service. This person could be either man or woman, married or single … with no special designation except being chosen or called forth to leadership by the community,” the discussion paper argues.
These guys must not have gotten very good grades in history. What’s creepier is if you combine the neo-arianism of the first priest with the nonsense of the latter two, and wind up with an ambiguous community of believers who like to bring about the presence of the (non-divine) Christ in their midst, for reasons I have yet to figure out.
Why do these people even bother staying Catholic? There is nothing compelling enough in their version of the faith that would make me willing to get up for Mass on Sunday, restrain myself from bumping off some people who really deserve it, or avoid subscribing to Maxim.
If I’m going to make those kinds of sacrifices, I demand something substantive in return. Is that so much to ask?
My good friend James Sullivan at The Rule links to a WND story by John Lofton that’s pretty shocking - saying that President Bush’s administration has given $2.2 Billion dollars (that’s NINE zeros) to Planned Parenthood:
So, where do I get the $2.2 billion figure? I get it from Jim Sedlak of the American Life League, an expert on Planned Parenthood and its federal funding. In an interview, Jim tells me yes, the Bush administration has indeed “extensively” funded Planned Parenthood, the total amount of federal funding (through 2006, the most recent figures known) being at least $2.2 billion. In Bush’s first year (2001), he approved $202 million for PP; in the last year for which there is reporting (2006), Bush gave PP $337 million – a single year funding increase of 67 percent. Sedlak notes that in 2006, PP showed a $114 million profit so did not need federal funding.
And “yes, certainly,” Jim says, every federal tax dollar given PP frees up one of its other dollars to pay for abortions. He adds: “And there are dollars that go into Planned Parenthood, especially state dollars, that pay for abortions. There are Medicaid programs, for example, that actually pay for abortions in some of the states. So some of this [federal] money goes directly to abortions.”
Jim says he has “no good answer” as to why Bush, supposedly pro-life, supposedly a “compassionate conservative,” would OK giving $2.2 billion in federal tax dollars to a group as evil as PP. He adds that he and others were hopeful that when Bush was elected he would cut off all Title 10 money to PP, “but he never has.”
When asked if over the years his group and other pro-life people have asked Bush or his people to cut off all PP federal funding, Jim says: “Yes, we made it absolutely clear that it is outrageous that Planned Parenthood continues to get all of this money.” So, what did Bush and his people say? “They gave no legitimate excuse for not cutting off the money. They told us this is difficult to do, they were working on it, they had to deal with Congress, etc. There was no substantive answer.”
Jim says that under President Bush, “Planned Parenthood has gotten more and more [federal] money every year – a slightly greater increase than under President Clinton.”
If this is true, it’s a bombshell, even if the program is funded through side channels. Steve Ertelt of Lifenews.com left a pretty huffy comment in James’ comment box about the article:
Not mentioned is the fact that this isn’t directly from Bush but from part of the Congressional budget. Pro-life advocates have tried for years to cut this family planning money to Planned Parenthood and we have lost the votes. Most recently we lost a 52-41 vote in the Senate to cut this funding (see http://www.lifenews.com/nat3385.html).
If we could cut the funding, Bush would gladly sign the non-gifting Planned Parenthood budget, so it’s totally disingenuous to say Bush wants this money and directly gave it to Planned Parenthood.
What is keeping us from having the votes to defeat this PP funding? We don’t have enough pro-life members of the House and Senate. Who opposes these pro-life candidates? Oh yes, John Lofton, a third party advocate, who says any pro-life Republican or Democrat really isn’t pro-life.
If Lofton is serious about cutting this $2.2 million in Planned Parenthood funding, he would launch a vigorous campaign to up our pro-life numbers in Congress. He’s done no such thing to my knowledge and frequently attacks the strategy of pro-life groups like Focus on the Family and National Right to Life that do and that have led the fight to cut this funding (http://www.lifenews.com/nat3405.html).
So Lofton does nothing to remedy the situation that enables the PP funding. Talk about hypocrisy.
The truth of the matter is that Bush has repeatedly cut off abortion funding. He installed the Mexico City Policy to prohibit funding of abortions abroad, he has signed bills with numerous abrotion funding bans domestically, and repeatedly cut off funding to UNFPA (and expanded the Reagan year limits in addition) because it is involved in China’s forced abortion programs. To say Bush is not against abortion funding is simply not factual.
So which is true? The WND article is more compelling, if for no other reason than that it offers substantiation, and a pretty damning interview. Even if Ertelt is correct and the blame lies with Congress, where is the Bush Administration’s fight to bring this to the public’s attention so it can be remedied? If it were me sitting in the White House and I knew this money was going, unchecked, to America’s largest abortion provider, you bet your bottom dollar I’d be making a racket and doing all in my power to get it stopped.
But then again - I’m pro-life - I don’t just campaign on it.
And that brings us again to the distinction that we so often fail to make. Politicians who claim to be pro-life believe in a platform that secures a voting base. They rarely seem to possess the personal conviction and sense of urgency that those of us who actually believe that abortion is murder do. Maybe it’s why we’re so disappointed every time we elect one of these schmucks only to have them phone it in on January 22nd and maybe appoint a judge or two when it’s their turn, or sign off on a parental notification law.
Where’s the fight? Where’s the passion? Where’s the guy who is willing to leverage every ounce of his political muscle as President (or Congressman, or Senator) to make abortion an unavoidable issue?
Nowhere, far as I can tell. Stories like this only back that up.
Unable to provide a unified endorsement this year, TAC took a different approach:
This election offers particularly dismal prospects for conservatives: the Senate’s most liberal member versus a Republican who combines the worst policies of George W. Bush with an erratic temper and a thinly veiled contempt for the Right. No third-party candidate has been able to break past the margins to mount an insurgent campaign.
Given these impoverished alternatives, no easy consensus emerges. So rather than contrive to deliver an official endorsement, we asked friends from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to discuss how they are voting, whether they see their vote as advancing a particular issue or fitting into a larger strategy, and what conflicts their choice might entail.
A few arguments worth noting follow:
This will be the first year since I was old enough to vote that I will not cast a ballot in a presidential election. I quote a character from Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” in my defense: “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy.”
I can’t vote for Barack Obama. He is a pro-abortion zealot and wrong on all the issues that matter most to social conservatives. Mind you, one should not be under any illusion that things will markedly improve under another Republican administration. But there is no question that on issues related to the sanctity of life and traditional marriage, an Obama administration, with a Democratic Congress at its back, would be far worse.
The best case that can be made for John McCain is that he would serve as something of a brake on runaway liberalism. But the country would be at significantly greater risk of war with the intemperate and bellicose McCain in the White House. That was clear months ago, but his conduct during the fall campaign—especially contrasted with Obama’s steadiness—has made me even more uneasy. His selection of Sarah Palin, while initially heartening to populist-minded social conservatives, has proved disastrous. Though plainly a politician of real talent, the parochial Palin is stunningly ill-suited for high office, and that’s a terrible mark against McCain’s judgment.
As both a conservative and a Republican, I confess that we deserve to lose this year. We have governed badly and have earned the wrath of voters, who will learn in due course how inadequate the nostrums of liberal Democrats are to the crisis of our times. If I cannot in good faith cast a vote against the Bush years by voting for Obama, I can at least do so by withholding my vote from McCain.
While it is foolish to look forward to a decisive electoral defeat for one’s side, I can’t say that the coming rout will be a bad thing. The Right desperately needs to repent, rethink, and rebuild—and only the pain of a shattering loss will force conservatives to confront reality. Not only must there be a renewal of our political vision and message—and this time, dissenters from within the Right must be heard—but there must also be a realization at the grassroots that we have long given too much importance to politics and not enough to building cultural institutions at the local level.
Voting symbolically is one thing—that’s what almost all of us do anyway since statistically our votes are not likely to sway the outcome. But organizing symbolically, committing hundreds of thousands of dollars and man-hours to third parties, is a waste of capital and talent that could be put to better use in Republican or Democratic primaries. The difference between Ron Paul’s 1988 Libertarian campaign and his 2008 Republican bid illustrates the point. Forget the minors; take over the majors.
With that in mind, I’m writing in Ron Paul for president and Barry Goldwater Jr. for vice president. Why agonize over whether Barr or Baldwin is the better constitutionalist, when you can cast your ballot for the very best? A vote for Paul is an endorsement of all he has accomplished (and might yet achieve) and a rejection of the often honorable but never effective course of the third parties.
The critical problem we face today is the same one all mankind has faced: the state, those monopolists who claim the right to break the laws that they make and enforce. How to restrain them is the critical problem of all sound political thinking. Making matters worse, this gang now has a monopoly on the money and the ability to print it, and they are abusing that power at our expense.
How does voting change the situation? Neither of the candidates for president wants to do anything about the problem. On the contrary, they want to make it worse. This is for a reason. The state owns the “democratic process” as surely as it owns the Departments of Labor and Defense and uses it in ways that benefit the state and no one else.
On the other hand, we do have the freedom not to vote. No one has yet drafted us into the voting booth. I suggest that we exercise this right not to participate. It is one of the few rights we have left. Nonparticipation sends a message that we no longer believe in the racket they have cooked up for us, and we want no part of it.
You might say that this is ineffective. But what effect does voting have? It gives them what they need most: a mandate. Nonparticipation helps deny that to them. It makes them, just on the margin, a bit more fearful that they are ruling us without our consent. This is all to the good. The government should fear the people. Not voting is a good beginning toward instilling that fear.
This year especially there is no lesser of two evils. There is socialism or fascism. The true American spirit should guide every voter to have no part of either.
During the so-called presidential debates, I failed to hear a single mention of the U.S. Constitution, which should have been the chief subject. What are the proper powers of government, of the federal government, and of the president? These questions don’t even come up anymore. The debaters wrangle heatedly about “the economy”—a phrase that never appears in the text of the Constitution but preoccupies today’s pundits and politicians.
Neither of the major-party presidential candidates, let alone President Bush, could have held an intelligent conversation with Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, or John Jay, the authors of The Federalist, our best known commentary on that Constitution. I happen to think that time has proved abundantly that their opponents, the “anti-Federalists,” were profoundly right in their fears of where adoption of the Constitution—a grievous act of centralization—would lead: to say no more about it, to a gigantic war between the states, to two world wars, and to the endless usurpation of power implicit in all yakking about “the economy.”
Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin can no more undo this sorry history than he can reverse the direction of the globe’s axial rotation. (I believe in miracles, but I don’t expect them in politics.) And he and I might well disagree on the authority of the Constitution itself. But he is a godly, reasonable, wise, and intelligent man—as worthy a candidate as I ever expect to see. He knows what the Tenth Amendment means; he understands the crucial 45th number of The Federalist, which reminds us that the powers delegated to the federal government are “few and defined,” whereas those remaining with the states are “numerous and indefinite.” Furthermore, he knows what the Holy Scriptures mean when they speak of a woman being “with child”; and no amount of pseudoconstitutional gobbledygook about “choice” or “privacy” can shake him on this point. His horror at legal abortion is still fresh.
I’ve been reading Chuck Baldwin’s essays for several years. My first reaction to them was to wish we had rulers who could read him, grasp what he was saying, and take it to heart. I never dreamed I would have the chance to vote for him myself.
Just a reminder of why relying on John McCain to fight for the life of the unborn may be a bit…optimistic:
His position in 1999/2000 (and today):
And again, during the debates leading up to the 2000 campaign (note how combative he is toward G.W. Bush on rape/incest/life exceptions - and how correctly Alan Keyes points out the flaw in the argument of both McCain and Bush):
On the ESCR issue:
A bit more on his ESCR support:
And yet, at Saddleback - a seeming contradiction:
Cindy McCain, asked about Roe, says she is pro-life like her husband, yet opposes any elimination of life exceptions, and does not think it should be overturned (and then says, wait, yes, she does think it should if it goes to the states):
In the event this might just be considered a slip of the tongue, GMA follows up - and look how curtly she dismisses abortion as “not the major issue on people’s minds right now” (McCain tries to recover):
While there’s no question that McCain is substantially less pro-abortion than Obama, he does not deserve the honorable label of pro-life. Considering that many of us are planning to vote for him on that issue alone (and I am not immune from the temptation) I think it’s important to remember who he is, the positions he has taken in the past, and even the potential influence of his wife.
I also believe that it’s worth noting - and I hadn’t read this before this evening - that all the way back in February, Republicans for Choice endorsed McCain (emphasis mine):
Republicans for Choice initially favored Rudy Giuliani for president, but have given their endorsement to McCain following Giuliani’s withdrawal from the race on January 29. Stone says that McCain is the least pro-life candidate in the field, and is thus deserving of the Republicans for Choice endorsement.
“[McCain] is [pro-life], but it’s not at the top of his agenda, not like Huckabee or the born-again Romney,” Stone said in an interview with CNS News. “He’s shown his willingness to reach across the party, and we look forward to those discussions.”
This organization also praised McCain’s campaign earlier this year for modifying the party plank on abortion:
Was there any good news at the Platform Hearings in Minnesota for Moderate/Conservative Pro-Choice Republicans?
Yah Sure You Betcha! But you didn’t read about it or see it on TV.
But the platform is still anti-choice and very anti-woman in many parts. So, how can we say there is any positive to be found?
First, the McCain campaign did not have control over what ultimately would be finalized in the Platform. If they had their way they would have cut it down to just a few pages and stripped out most of the stuff with which we disagree. That was their original intent but there were not the votes on the Platform committee to get that done.
Many of the Delegates on that Committee were not McCain Delegates — they were Huckabee and Romney et al Delegates.
Second, the McCain Platform staff writers, at our prodding, put in language into the Abortion Plank itself that talked about the need to work with those in the Party who disagree on this issue to find common ground.
This is the first time ever that any Presidential contender tried to tinker with that plank to add in language that recognized us.
This was not our first choice of what to put in — but it was RFC’s suggestion. The more extreme elements of our Party who were on the Platform Committee in abundance stripped that language out.
We may have been defeated in the subcommittee but Platform Chairs Congressman Kevin McCarthy (CA) and Senator Richard Burr (NC) came through for us in the full Convention.
They added and reworked language that we, at RFC, had submitted, into the Preamble! Not the appendix as had been done before — sticking some pathetic and weak attempt to appease us into the back end which no one sees.
No instead they took our suggested language and made it stronger and put it right up front.
Interestingly, Republicans for Choice also makes the case that neither John Roberts nor Samuel Alito are known quantities when facing a challenge to Roe - and that in fact both of them have records which could be construed to favor precedent in such a situation. I’ve been concerned about this for some time - New Oxford Review has expressed the same doubts about these two justices - and it does make me wonder what our odds are, even if McCain gets in, that he will:
a) pick a truly anti-Roe justice (or justices)
b) be able to have such justices, if nominated, confirmed by a democratic Congress
c) create an actual, willing majority on the SCOTUS which will strike down Roe
So there you have it. I’m looking for the truth here, for my own sake as well as anyone who cares to listen, and there’s a lot to be concerned about. There’s plenty of stuff out there saying John McCain is pro-life, that he’s feared by the pro-abortion lobby, etc., but I think his own words speak for themselves. He is not someone we can really trust on this, and we have to know that going in, even if we feel compelled (as many of us do) to vote for him against our will to help fight an Obama win, which will admittedly be worse.
For my part, I still don’t think I can do it. I’ll compromise a lot to save lives, especially babies, but I remain unconvinced that a vote for McCain is really the right thing.
“Perhaps it is possible, especially in strange times such as these, for an entire people, or at least a majority, to deceive themselves into believing that things are in fact going well when in fact they are not, when things are in fact farcical. Most Romans worked and played as usual while Rome fell about their ears.”
– Walker Percy, The Second Coming
I shamelessly stole that quote from someone’s Facebook profile. I’ve never read Percy. All the same, it struck me as an incisive analysis of what’s happening right now in America.
It’s interesting to me that I’m studying the Fall of Rome in school while I’m watching the same thing happen in America. We’re not there yet, but there’s no saying how fast it will happen or how technology will influence the rate of consolidation or decline. If I had to make a comparison (and such things inevitably fall short, considering the differen cultural contexts) I’d say we’re heading from the Republic into the Empire stage. Obama is, as I said yesterday, our Julius Caesar, though instead of returning, unwanted by the Senate, to Rome, accompanied by his army fresh from the triumphant Gallic campaign, he will storm Washington, cheered on by the Senate, and order home our army from Iraq.
Regardless, he will become a well-loved hero who will gather power unto himself, and in the frenzy of public support, foment his role as imperator, thus suspending the republic and beginning centuries of American dictatorship, under which lewd behavior will be rewarded and Christianity will be persecuted, until at last the central government cannot support the expanse of territory and individual power centers (ie., states or regions) will break off into independent nations.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Letting my imagination wander, I see an interim period beginning in about 2011 where the government will have consolidate substantial economic, political and military power, all of which will be willingly given over at first by those who want a handout in a time of economic crisis.
This leads to the development of a totalitarian American Regime which becomes truly imperialistic (you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, hippies) recognizing the need to marshal resources, and aggressively moving to secure things like energy sources in other countries. We’d be smartest to start with Venezuela, because it’s close to home and has lots of oil. Mexico also has a lot, of course, though supplies there are dwindling.
Internally, we’ll be seeing increasingly unwelcome totalitarian control emerging in major urban areas - thin East German style, but with lots more hi-tech surveillance - and people will begin waking up to what they brought upon themselves too late to do anything about it but follow the curfew and steer clear of the Homeland Security jackboots. We’ll be seeing a lot of UAVs in the skies, and probably robotic patrol bots (they’re already using these in Iraq) and the level of communications monitoring that the conspiracy theorists are always clamoring about will become transparent as the government acts on it, perhaps invoking the “common good” as expressed through the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorist Act (which Obama has been said to support.)
Where things start to get dicey is the outlying areas - the rural parts, the midwest, etc. America is too big and spread out to really occupy, and we have an ingrained notion of freedom deep in our bones. I see government control sticking to major infrastructure routes and population centers, leaving the rest of the heartland to decay and foment into rebel groups which the government hopes will just devolve into insignificant militia bands, but could lead to serious secessionist blocs.
I could go on with my orwellian vision, but I’m starving. What do you think will happen, worst (plausible) case scenario?
(And yes, I realize this post is full of pretty stream-of-consciousness stuff…I’m just thinking out loud here.)
(Credit)
With every passing day, it looks increasingly certain that The One™ has got this election nailed down. America’s about to get all the “hope” and “change” it can stomach.
Meanwhile, the London Telegraph reports that senior GOP leadership expect a landslide victory for Obama which could ignite a civil war within the ranks for the future of the party:
Aides to George W.Bush, former Reagan White House staff and friends of John McCain have all told The Sunday Telegraph that they not only expect to lose on November 4, but also believe that Mr Obama is poised to win a crushing mandate.
They believe he will be powerful enough to remake the American political landscape with even more ease than Ronald Reagan did in 1980.
The prospect of an electoral rout has unleashed a bitter bout of recriminations both within the McCain campaign and the wider conservative movement, over who is to blame and what should be done to salvage the party’s future.
[snip]
David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, told The Sunday Telegraph that Republicans should now concentrate all their fire on “the need for balanced government”.
“It’s hard to see a turnaround in the White House race,” he said. “This could look like an ideological as well as a party victory if we’re not careful. It could be 1980 in reverse.
“With this huge new role for federal government in the economy, the possibility for mischief making is very, very great. One man should not have a monopoly of political and financial power. That’s very dangerous.”
In North Carolina, where Senator Elizabeth Dole seems set to loose, Republicans are running adverts that appear to take an Obama victory for granted, warning that the Democrat will have a “blank cheque” if her rival Kay Hagen wins. “These liberals want complete control of government in a time of crisis,” the narrator says. “All branches of Government. No checks and balances.”
Democrats lead in eight of the 12 competitive Senate races and need just nine gains to reach their target of 60. Even Mitch McConnell, the leader of Senate Republicans, is at risk in Kentucky, normally a rock solid red state.
A private memo on the likely result of the congressional elections, leaked to Politico, has the Republicans losing 37 seats.
Ed Rollins, who masterminded Ronald Reagan’s second victory in 1984, said the election is already over and predicted: “This is going to turn into a landslide.”
A former White House official who still advises President Bush told The Sunday Telegraph: “McCain hasn’t won independents, nor has he inspired the base. It’s the worst of all worlds. He is dragging everyone else down with him. He needs to deploy people and money to salvage what we can in Congress.”
It goes on, if you can bear to read it. For me, if Obama weren’t sitting on the other side of this horrific breech, I’d be downright gleeful for a fight to restructure the Republican Party. We need it desperately, and the fact that Sarah Palin was thrown out there as an appeal to the base means that they know what we want - sort of.
It’s hard to tell if this is the beginning of Palin’s career or the unceremonious and abrupt end. If Obama wins overwhelmingly - something the polls don’t entirely point to but other factors (like his insanely large rallies) seem to indicate - Palin may be tied irrevocably to McCain’s trainwreck of a campaign. Further, she’s endorsed too many of his non-conservative policies to be free of ideological baggage, meaning that her best bet in 2012 would be to play up the fact that she was inexperienced back in ‘08 and has spent a lot of time learning and developing policy platforms of her own. My guess is that Palin is, on the whole, too neo-con for what seems to be an emerging core of paleonconservative/classical liberals at the root of the conservative resurgence. Guys like Michael Brendan Dougherty, Justin Raimondo, Conor Friedersdorf, Daniel Larison, and even the never-serious John Zmirak are exerting pull that’s either getting more play, or I’m just becoming more aware of it. Pat Buchanan is in style again (even on Rachel Maddow’s show), the Paulites cannot be underestimated, Von Mises has stewards in gentlemen like Jeffrey Tucker and Tom Woods, and Catholic bloggers like Mark Shea and, if anyone is listening, myself - are trying to help pull people out of the neocon tailspin.
The convergence of social and traditional media that’s happening right now, real time, is helping to blur lines and make this possible - the influence of the little guy, if he’s cogent enough and has good things to say - can be equally important to the stuff getting bandied about at The Corner or in The Kingdom Of Kristol, and certainly vies for attention with old-guard rags like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. I give far more political creedence to bloggers and writers who make their case well and consistently (linking, in turn, to others who do the same) than I do to big-name journalists or old-skool party hacks and pundits. I want fresh perspectives, people who were never in bed with an administration, writers whose views haven’t calcified over the course as one (or several) campaign strategies panned out. People who still have to work for a living, connect with real people, and have to hustle for their martinis and only attend gala dinners in rented tuxes.
I digress.
For those who continue to hold the reins of power, the dividing line can be neatly drawn between those in love with the Governor-lady with the funny accent from Alaska, and those who are less besotted:
…The real bile has been saved for those conservatives who have balked at the selection of Sarah Palin.
In addition to Mr Frum, who thinks her not ready to be president, Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s greatest speechwriter and a columnist with the Wall Street Journal, condemned Mr McCain’s running mate as a “symptom and expression of a new vulgarisation of American politics.” Conservative columnist David Brooks called her a “fatal cancer to the Republican Party”.
The backlash that ensued last week revealed the fault lines of the coming civil war.
Rush Limbaugh, the doyen of right wing talk radio hosts, denounced Noonan, Brooks and Frum. Neconservative writer Charles Krauthammer condemned “the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama”, while fellow columnist Tony Blankley said that instead of collaborating in heralding Mr Obama’s arrival they should be fighting “in a struggle to the political death for the soul of the country”.
During the primaries the Democratic Party was bitterly divided between Barack Obama’s “latte liberals” and Hillary Clinton’s heartland supporters, but now the same cultural division threatens to tear the Republican Party apart.
Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin’s critics as “cocktail party conservatives” who “give aid and comfort to the enemy”.
He told The Sunday Telegraph: “There’s going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?”
This is a bunch of nonsense, of course. Palin is no Reagan. Her strength lies in her relatability to average Americans and her strong pro-life, pro-family appeal. But what is populism when the country is so schizophrenic? 2012 will see Palin in the running, no doubt, but will she rise to the fore or be forever tied to afore-mentioned policies and failed bid of Crazy Uncle John? Who will emerge to lead the factions to a unified conservatism by then? Could a dark horse candidate come to save us? Will we see the Palins and Jindals vying for legitimacy, instead of the Romneys, Julianis and McCains?
Or, if the Obamessiah is annointed, will there be a 2012 election at all? (I can see his inauguration bearing shades of Caesar returning from Gaul. I wonder if future generations will equate “Crossing the Potomac” with “Crossing the Rubicon”?)
If anyone has booze and wants to stop by to talk about it, you should be able to locate my house if you drive through town and listen for the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The January Dancer by Michael Flynn
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