TUNING OUT
Re: Philip Klein’s Time to Get Out the Iron:
My experiences and other anecdotal evidence is that most people have essentially tuned out Obama and his ilk. He is for all appearances irrelevant to a majority of the public especially when he continues to tell “whoppers”about health care. The only groups that support him en mass are the hard left and, of course, the Black community with the exception of a very small number of informed conservative Blacks. This latter point is really sad since most Black Americans would be horrified if they really thought about Obama’s hard left agenda. But back to my main point, I was having lunch this past weekend by myself in a popular family style restaurant (the clientele is heavily seniors) and when my lunch was brought I somewhat reluctantly asked the waitress if she could please turn down the nearby TV monitor that had Obama delivering his very partisan Labor Day address. I had never been so bold before, usually not wanting to offend anyone, but I knew I could not enjoy my lunch and my copy of TAS if I had to listen to Obama in the background. Interestingly she did so and no one objected that I know of. But do we make a serious mistake by assuming Obama is irrelevant and go about our every day business while he and the hard left go about the dismantling of our freedoms? Probably, but otherwise we would have a great deal of indigestion.
— Jack Wheatley
Royal Oak, Michigan
Robert Gibbs wanted Fox to preempt “Dancing with the Stars” for this?
— Dan Martin
Pittsburgh
GOING TO WASTE
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.’s Is Pat Buchanan a Crank?:
Another superb (as always) commentary by RET. I gave up reading anything by Pat Buchanan ages ago, when he and some other so-called conservatives (i.e. Paul Craig Roberts) fell off the conservative truck and landed in a heap of liberal cow manure, which apparently saturated their pores and led to some sort of dementia. Perhaps, however, blogger Stephanie is correct in asserting that Mr. Buchanan has spent too much time hanging with the derelicts over at PMSNBC, thereby leading to some sort of intellectual mange.
It’s sad to see a good conservative mind go to waste.
— Jim Bjaloncik
Stow, Ohio
No, he just cannot connect with Jews because he believed through his religion as a Catholic, that the Jews killed Jesus. The Pope apologized to the Jews in 1994 for their terrible treatment of the Jews. Pat still has not got the message, that we all sinned and need a Savior, desperately.
— Arlene
St. Louis, Missouri
I wasn’t at the event, but have read PJB (as well as others) on this. It is true the Hitler had, as you say, “limited geopolitical aims,” especially when compared to the British Empire. (Or the Soviets)
I don’t however recall that PJB simply credits Churchill’s response to the complexities of the European situation as simply or merely excited overreactions.
It is all too clear that Hitler was a racist, but then so was Churchill. Read Churchill on Gandhi.
Was Hitler a lunatic? Read Ron Rosenbaum’s “Explaining Hitler.” He was incredibly evil and deluded, for sure.
He was a military incompetent, but nor more so than Churchill.
I don’t think Pat is a crank.
— Robert Christian
Philadelphia
NEW JERSEY-STYLE TALIBAN
Re: George H. Wittman’s Foreign Policy By Avoidance:
In his third paragraph Mr. Wittman refers to a Taliban-imposed “protection tax” on U.S. economic projects in Afghanistan, and says that such payoffs long preceded the Taliban and indeed are common throughout the less-developed world.
Hmmm. Does that include the construction and “waste management” industries in Northern New Jersey and the New York metro area? Just wondering.
— Chuck
PAYING FOR CALM
Re: Stacy Cline’s Money Business:
“Throughout the less-developed world there are similar payoffs. That this is hot news for the Obama foreign policy establishment shows its naïveté.”
Democrats naive? I thought they invented the age-old practice of zagat, aka extortion. Why would they be surprised to see our forces in Afghanistan paying zagat to protect infrastructure?
Maybe it’s just the intellectuals in the State Department who are confused. Here is a quick lesson for them.
Imagine a Democratic senator from a far-away land who, for some inexplicable reason, is forced from his seat of power. We don’t have to use our imagination, let’s use Tom Daschle.
Though forced from power, he is still armed with knowledge and influence that can be exploited for profit. Enter Alston & Bird. These guys know who is vulnerable and operating in unfamiliar terrain. Alston & Bird gently persuades them to pay large fees to have their emissary broker protection. Insurance outfit United Health is roughly analogous to our armed forces paying for calm. Zagat!
— Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvnia
Ms. Cline in her humorous allusion, “Government can give, and it can also take away,” offers greater truth than the collective of The One’s rhetorical greatest hits. Of course, Ms. Cline is ironically replacing the term Lord with that of government, but in many minds, including explicit denial of God by the Left, government has sincerely replaced God.
When the absolutes of God are replaced with the relativistic morality and situational ethics of government, man can (and does) make up the rules as he goes along. Abortion, no matter what trimester, is no longer a question of morality but of unfettered rights (and none of those pesky responsibilities). When the kleptocracratic government chooses to run up huge deficits and spend money to buy off the populace, consideration of the rights of present or future citizens need not be given: the administration needs to be kept in power, and buying votes is simply the way things are done. (Many a Caesar spent opulently on bread and circuses; they believed they were accountable to neither man nor God.) Decisions by the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (“Death Panels”) as to what is “best” for the elderly who are no longer productive enough, become acceptable with simple (if not despicable) logic: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.” The are not the words of just any man on the street, but a doctor, and not just any doctor, but Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama’s choice for Health Care Czar. As long as man’s wisdom supersedes God’s word, the outcome will be disastrous.
Certainly the Left is guilty of marginalizing and denying God, but the Right is not without fault. As Ms. Cline points out, “Where there is gain to be had, people will find a way to gain it.” The problem with capitalism is the capitalists who cannot see anything but gain and loss. The cause of capitalism gained greatly by the words of Ayn Rand and her Objectivism, but Rand purposely denies a higher power and higher calling. When government (as an entity) acts in its own self-interest, putting aside all God given morality and responsibilities, the people become servants to the state. By what reason or moral does one rail against government if it serves one’s personal interests? Without God, the answer is silence. Capitalism, unchecked and unbalanced by a higher purpose, is also a danger to our forming a more perfect union.
Taking a teleological view, man is best served when we pay unto Caesar that which is his and also pay unto God His portion.
— I.M. Kessel
P.J. O’Rourke said it best:
“As long as buying and selling are controlled by law, the first things bought and sold will be the lawmakers.”
— Martin Owens
Sacramento, California
OLD PRODUCT, NEW PACKAGE
Re: Quin Hillyer’s Alabama Byrne-ing:
We now know how Mr. Byrne stands on education. Where does he stand on other issues? Right to life? Cutting taxes? The Second Amendment?
It has been my experience that “New South” equals “Old Liberalism In A New Package.”
— Michael Skaggs
Murray, Kentucky
HATE SQUAD
Re: Matthew Vadum’s Obama’s Plan to Desecrate 9/11:
What unbelievable un-American and divisive rhetoric! Who does Matthew Vadum think he is? The one and only framer of the meaning of patriotism? We’re a nation, not a group of thugs who demonize our neighbors when we disagree. I’m no flaming LIBRUL, but I’ll most likely become one after reading his garbage. Would Matthew Vadum prefer a day of “Hate” to one of good will? I guess he’s entitled to his opinion, but his writing smells of vicious name-calling. Keep writing, Matthew maybe the more Americans will be recruited to your “Hate Squad.”
— Jim Ginch
THE STEPFORD PRESIDENT
Re: Peter Ferrara’s All the President’s Nuts:
Obama … Obama … Obama. Hmmmmm. Oh wait a minute. Isn’t that the humble young man who always denies credit for his silently appointed czars’ left-of-left proposed plans…to upgrade the unions, take over big industries, free the naughty people who planned and executed an attack on the United States? Is that the guy who spread all the credit for his un-stimulating economy-saving plan among some dozen Democrat leaders who promptly refused to read whatever it was they had written? If the news media would only reveal his picture once in a while, I would have recognized him in a minute; and if that same dependable news media would only publish his speeches once in a while, I would have been better prepared. But yes, now I’ll know him when I see him at the next Town Hall meeting. Yes indeed. The first Stepford president. Yeah, now I know. Now I know.
— Nancy Murphy
DIMINISHING APPLAUSE
The curtain falls
With no curtain calls.
It’s time to get out the hook.
The part’s been played.
He’s overstayed.
His downfall is by the book.
The adage is true.
There is nothing new.
He’s predictable to the core.
He has never heard
The admonishing word,
“Always leave them wanting more.”
As the makeup comes off,
As the bright lights dim,
Some may have trouble
Remembering him.
— Mimi Evans Winship
