The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Right-Wing Cotton Candy

8.20.08 @ 12:01AM

REPTILE REPUBLICANS
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Batman and Rush: Why McCain Will Win:

Batman, meet Pollyanna. As opposed to the cotton candy rhetoric of Obama, this article is right-wing cotton candy. But I hope it turns out to be true.
-- Michael G. Novak
Ellicott City, Maryland

My thinking brain says Mr. Lord is wrong but my reptilian brain agrees. A wonderful new way to view this campaign. Thanks!
-- Chris Small
Winston-Salem, North Carolina

I love Jeffrey Lord's article, "Batman and Rush"! Even more, I love his theory on why we will elect the Batman, John Wayne, Rush Limbaugh candidate, John McCain, rather than the squishy, nuanced radical Obama. However, one question remains: How did Jimmah Carter get elected? Is he the anomaly that proves the theory or just a moment of insanity in American electoral history? Also, Bill Clinton: not the reptilian brain, just a snake!

Thanks for an entertaining and uplifting read!
-- Susan Whitlock
Nantucket, Massachusetts

Editor: Where were you when the article "Batman and Rush" was approved for your publication? Were you asleep at the switch? Were you in love with the premise and thus did not scrutinize the actual writing? I do not think it was sophomoric because of affirmative action that has caused a dumbing down in education...thus will call it seniororic. At any rate, the article was poorly written and needed a strong editorial hand. Nothing wrong with the subject or the entertaining premise. But surely someone at The American Spectator has got a red pencil.
-- Anne Burkart

Jeff Lord's musing on the U.S. cultural obstacles to the "The One" being elected above his pay grade to POTUS aside (Is there a Higher pay grade?), I think the REAL reason the faux R McCain will win in November is homicidal reality. The Russian Bear's assault on Georgia will have much more to do with a McCain White House then any cultural passing spark in the night. As much as the Russian's would much rather have a useful idiot like "The One" to terrorize, intimidate into submission and play with, like a cat with a mortally wounded mouse, any semi-conscious individual who is watching the "drive by" media is (or should be), scared to death by the Russian re-start of WWIV and know that somebody that will react to real attacks with how he feels about the mass slaughter of civilians by drunken Russian soldiers and whines "Can't we all just get along?" as the bombs fall is not POTUS material. Sheer fear for survival of family and friends will decide the vote. Not sure how this will ultimately play out, it is far from over as I write this, but the Bear just swatted "The One" into the shadows of history.
-- Craig Sarver
Seattle, Washington

It was fun reading Mr. Lord's attempt to get air time from Rush. I like the analogy, but unfortunately, Mr. Lord learned it all colored with an egg-head's pejorative dislike for both common people, and for people who get things done.

It is well known that military conflict often goes to the most decisive actor, not the best thinker. Why, because the best thinker hesitates as he rethinks when the situation is bound to change. That hemming and hawing of the thinker, hits the average mans gut as a potential disaster when the next crisis hits. Not that thinking doesn't have an important role prior to a crisis.

Beyond standing up and taking action in the face of crisis, we want a leader who will do the right thing, when it is time to act. Someone who promises that he will rethink in every new situation will undoubtedly end up rethinking himself into a wrong decision. We want someone who has thought out most situations in advance, and internalized the lessons he has learned in life as core principles. If the principles are right, his decisions will be right.

The great ones, like Reagan and Rush, have done an incredible amount of observation and thinking, so much so that they are able to express their conclusions naturally and in simple self-evident principles. Debasing the results of that process as some slimy reptilian appeal to the gut is a disservice to those leaders.

And finally, the so-called "intellectuals," besides being unable to hide their disdain for common people, have a very bad track record for actually making things worse through their rethinking.

So add it all up. You will find that the peoples' guts are right in protecting themselves from harm inflicted on them from someone who disdains them. Those guts are a guarantee of survival in the face of danger. But more than that, those guts pick people who have already done their thinking and come to use proven principles to guide their decisions.

How slimy and reptilian and atavistic we must be to turn away from self-anointed snobs who know better than us what is good for us, who discard millennia of hard learned lessons of what is right and wrong to rethink each issue because they know better, and who will stand up for us and act in times of crisis, instead of cowering in indecision.
-- James Bailey

What Lord sees as thinking, I see as "stalling out." At best, if Obama is thinking at all in these trance-like moments, its "Omigod. I wish I had a thought. I could sure use one now." Or he is pre-equivocating, figuring out how he can say something, anything, that he can later "nuance" into its direct opposite, if need be.

Letter to the Editor

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