The American Spectator : We're Becoming Venezuela

Text Size

We're Becoming Venezuela

8.10.09 @ 6:01AM

The U.S. as a Chavez ravine. A Democrat defends Obama. Steve Martin found unfunny. Plus more.

(Page 3 of 3)

Mr. Stein, I'm sorry that you lost someone important to you and career. I'm sorry for his family's loss and the sorrow felt by this man's fans.

But I don't get the fascination.

A movie reviewer I admire expressed the thought that Steve Martin at a car rental agency in a John Hughes movie was the single funniest scene he had ever lived through at the movies. Barely lived through, it seems, since he
couldn't breathe for laughing.

The script for this scene is posted at imdb.com in the Quotes section. It seems to be accurate.

Apparently screaming "F_CK!" 42 times is regarded as funny these days.

I'm sorry to say it didn't cause me to even smile.
-- Lloyd Daub
Greenfield, Wisconsin

SPEAKING THE TRUTH
Re: Quin Hillyer's Us Versus Them:

That was a great article. It needs the widest dissemination. Keep up the good work.
-- Joel Leggett

Page: < 1 23

Letter to the Editor View all comments (13) | Leave a comment

frost| 8.10.09 @ 8:18AM

Kinda saw-it-coming, you might say? Fifteen, twenty years ago I returned AARP's propaganda with an important looking letter saying, "if you send me any more of this garbage I'll sue you for harassment."
It worked. They've not darkened my mailbox since...

David Gonzalez| 8.10.09 @ 10:11AM

Mr. Daub---

I'm not a psychologist, but I once read that humans laugh when they're surprised (which is why the funniest jokes are the ones with which the comic blind-sides the audience). The diatribe was hilarious precisely because it wasn't expected, and the female rental agent's observation was even funnier for the same reason. I suspect that, were you to consume some Kingsford briquets, in very little time you'd produce some high-quality blue-white diamonds!

wanda keith| 8.10.09 @ 11:42AM

I am scared. I am very scared! B. Hussein is out of control. As for the front group AARP, I returned my card after they supported B. Hussein in the last election. I have repeatedly told them to stop sending me their trash and I now put it in envelopes with no return address and send it all back to them. I am not sure if they get it but I feel better.

Die Fledermaus| 8.10.09 @ 5:50PM

Lee Russ is just another left wing socialist nut job.

IMKessel| 8.10.09 @ 6:43PM

Mr. Zierak,

Well thought out and written.

Welcome to the revolution.

FIGHTINGFORFREEDOM| 8.10.09 @ 6:47PM

Obama Hussein / the Demograt dictator is following the footstep of Chavez/Castro. Wake up America! Stand up and fight for the freedom before it's too late. This administration is practicing communist law in our country and suppressing the voice of the American people!

Occam's Razor| 8.10.09 @ 7:38PM

Mr. Nixon may or may not have been an antisemite in his private views. But in his public one, he authorized the airlift that saved Israel in 1973. Some credit is due for that.

IMKessel| 8.10.09 @ 9:27PM

Nixon's motivation, like all human motivation, is like a diamond, multi-faceted and observable only from certain angles at a given moment. Or to use Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty: all (motivational) factors cannot be observed at once. Nixon assisted (saved is too strong a verb) Israel, but he had a myriad of reasons. Israel owed him no thanks.

Plenty of evidence is recorded that Nixon was an anti-Semite. It is not a question of fact, though it may be one of perception: “You know, there's none so blind as they that won't see.
[1738 Swift Polite Conversation III. 191]”

Richard Baker| 8.10.09 @ 11:22PM

Kessel:
Tell you what. If Nixon hadn't taken M-60 tanks out of US stocks and had them C-5'd to Israel in 1973 Israel would have been hammered. Does an Anti-semite do something like that? Ask Golda Meir and the Israelis of the day if they were thankful.

IMKessel| 8.11.09 @ 12:51AM

Mr. Baker,

If Nixon had not sent military assistance, the outcome might well have been different, but his sending assistance does not make him pro-Israeli or negate his personal feelings of anti-Semitism. Nixon understood that without the support of the Evangelical Christian and other pro-Israeli constituents, his presidency would have become highly ineffective. Abandoning Israel would have been (rightly) seen as morally repugnant. Further, the Soviets were giving support to Arab and Muslim countries. The defeat of Israel would have been a defeat of America by proxy (similar to conflict in Viet Nam). Nixon well understood the real world and the world of realpolitik. His personal opinions and dislikes took a backseat to his politics.

Please feel free to do “Google” President Nixon + anti-Semitic Remarks. (Here is one result: http://www.bing.com/search?q=Nixon+++Anti-Semitism&src=IE-SearchBox)

Ivan| 8.13.09 @ 10:54PM

Like Chavez, no way, it's imposible to make a copy. His style to rule Venezuela is unique, more likely to Castro's style.

Richard Baker| 8.14.09 @ 4:17PM

Kessel:
As usual, you liberals make the assumption that you could read Nixon's mind.

Lee Russ| 8.19.09 @ 9:23PM

Well, I guess "we" have really been put in our place. First we get the incredibly well reasoned "Lee Russ is just another left wing socialist nut job." Then we get the impeccably argued "As usual, you liberals make the assumption that you could read Nixon's mind."

Brilliant. Unassailable.