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The Spectacle Blog
Displaying the tone-deafness that doomed his presidential campaign, Jon Huntsman compared the current state of the Republican Party to Communist China. Complaining about the Republican National Committee’s decision to un-invite him from a fundraiser after he called for third party competition, Huntsman told reporters in New York, “This is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script.”
Needless to say, the Communist Chinese can do a lot worse things to you than rescind your invitation to a posh fundraiser. Huntsman later explained he was “waxing philosophical.” It was precisely Huntsman’s tendency to express his extremely mild dissents from the GOP platform in such world historic terms, combined with his not-too-thinly veiled contempt for those to his right, that kept him an also-ran.
Not to be outdone, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wonders if America needs an “Arab spring” because the last vestiges of constitutionally limited government make it so darned hard to get anything done. (Presumably by Arab spring he doesn’t mean the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the government.) In recent years, all Washington has been able to ram through is Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act, the Iraq war, Sarbanes-Oxley, TARP, the stimulus, Dodd-Frank, and Obamacare. I’m probably missing something. “We can’t be great as long as we remain a vetocracy rather than a democracy,” Friedman concludes.
Beam me up, Scotty.
View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/04/23/us-like-communist-china-needs
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Occam's Tool| 4.23.12 @ 2:27PM
The "Arab Spring" has been a nightmare for Arabs and others. No thanks. Friedman is an asshole.
Bob S| 4.23.12 @ 3:20PM
Friedman's reading level in grade school didn't improve to the point where he could understand The Federalist Papers. It gave him too many headaches.
Scott| 4.23.12 @ 2:53PM
If we could put Obama on trial,I would support an Arab spring here.
ncatty| 4.23.12 @ 3:01PM
Lets pay tribute to gridlock and obstructionism. If we had them a couple of years ago there would be no Obamacare. Oh yeah, partisanship is a good thing too, it illuminates the differences and gives the voters a real choice.
Jack in Wi.| 4.23.12 @ 10:14PM
Gridlock is the best friend freedom and liberty ever had. The more filibusers and nothing getting done the better. The more incompetent the goverment the better. The people will just have to figure out how to scam the system like they do in Italy, Greece and Mexico.
Bob S| 4.23.12 @ 3:17PM
You are missing something, the communist dictatorship they've been wanting to install for decades.
Rhoetus| 4.23.12 @ 4:41PM
You missed the Income Tax and the Gestapo like IRS.
Dixie Pixie| 4.23.12 @ 5:27PM
Freeman showing the acuteness of vision and depth on intellect that that has made the “New York Times” the shining tower of vacuousness that it is today, does not realize the American “Arab Spring” started 2 years ago.
It was called the TEA Party movement.
Scott| 4.23.12 @ 7:52PM
I changed my mind. Prefer the Mussolini treatment for BHO.
Dixie Pixie| 4.23.12 @ 8:28PM
Be careful Scott.
The Secret Service knocked on Ted Nugent's door for much less.
Bob K.| 4.24.12 @ 1:09AM
The only difference between these two fools is that Friedman is a "journalist" (whatever that now means) who writes for the "paper of record" (whatever that means).