The American Spectator

Craig Sarver br> Seattle, Washington /p>

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.

p>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. br> — James Bailey /p>

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.

Obama has Silly Putty where his reptilian brain ought to be. Obviously, Lord was not listening too closely when Obama was asked by Rick Warren who he would seek wise counsel from — Obama’s first blush answer was wife Michelle. Geez. Reminded me of when Jimmeh Cahtuh said he consulted daughter Amy on world affairs. McCain said “General Petraeus” Pretty reptilian, huh?