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The Spectacle Blog
I find it interesting how The Washington Post, NPR, Newsday, Slate and The Los Angeles Times amongst others are falling all over each other to scrutinize the influence Ayn Rand had on the intellectual development of Paul Ryan.
I am not saying these outlets shouldn’t do so. But it would be nice if they had devoted the same energy to scrutinizing President Obama’s intellectual development vis a vis Saul Alinsky and the very much alive Bill Ayers, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi. Alas, such scrutiny into Obama’s intellectual development is viewed as rude and racist. Besides these outlets reserve their branding for Republicans. Or in this case you could call it Randing.
BTW, The Los Angeles Times still has the videotape of Obama’s 2003 appearance at the Khalidi tribute under lock and key having deemed it unfit for public viewing.
View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/13/randing-ryan
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Teflon93 | 8.13.12 @ 5:49PM
What formed Romney's intellectual development? Nelson Rockefeller?
Trinacria| 8.13.12 @ 6:03PM
Well, sport, considering our curent catastrophic economic predicament and the utter failure of the current administration to cobble together a single coherent economic policy, I should like to think we'd be rather well served by a leader whose intellectual development was nurtured by someone who had actually achieved some measure of economic success. But that's just me...
Teflon93 | 8.13.12 @ 7:51PM
Ahh, so nothing matters except what Mitt Romney claims at any given moment---not his past record, nor his ideology (whatever it is), not the staff he's surrounded himself with. Convenient for Candidate Etch-A-Sketch---but then you'll just take whatever he'll give you after his election, won't he?
You might want to learn what he'll be dishing up first---you'll be eating lots of it.
Dai Alanye | 8.13.12 @ 8:21PM
PTFE93 admits that Romney is the expected winner.
Trinacria| 8.14.12 @ 12:49AM
Yeah, you're right. F**k it. Obama is clearly a better option.
Trinacria| 8.14.12 @ 12:57AM
By the way, in point of fact his record is what sold me.
You see, I generally find that incredibly successful people tend to get that way by virtue of skill, intellect, and hard work (though I will concede that some folks manage to succeed by virtue of handouts, affirmative action, fraud and the liberal white guilt that pervades the Harvard law faculty - though I hasten to note that no one in particular comes to mind).
aware| 8.13.12 @ 6:59PM
Except him saying Rand's name I detect no residual after effect from any passing fancy Ryan may have had for her ideas. So the press can rest easy on that.
I awkwardly mention that other Rand disciple, Alan Greenspan, to show how little principles, if you ever had any, mean in the swamp gas atmosphere of Mordor on the Potomac.
Teflon93 | 8.13.12 @ 7:52PM
What, you mean Rand didn't tell people to keep Medicare in place at all costs and that so long as the budget is balanced in another 33 years everything's great?
aware| 8.14.12 @ 6:02AM
2 years ago I said Paul Ryan is an Establishment plant to infiltrate, subvert, and neuter whatever chance the Tea Party had. I see nothing to make me doubt that. Now even a statist crap pile like Romney can claim Tea Party support.
The conservative movement is so caught up in a parade of fools to the point it can't even see that it, too, has been neutered.
Lullabys Legends and Lies| 8.13.12 @ 7:04PM
We should do "something" about the Los Angeles Times, to force them to release this tape!! Maybe take a page out of the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd, and get people on the ground, right outside their Corporate headquarters, and demand this tape from them!! I'd love to see this tape, I'd love to hear what our President had to say back then, and I think we have the right to know today!! So if you're on Twitter, get this demand for this tape trending!! I'm on Twitter myself (@IH8Commies), but I'm still new to it, so I have no idea how to get people talking about something, but maybe you do, and if you do, do it!! The Los Angeles Times will fold to the pressure, if the heat is turned up on them!! So let's light a fire under their ass!! Let's do a "Rightwing" version of Chic-Fil-A on them, but without the graffiti, or the kissing!!
Trinacria| 8.13.12 @ 7:44PM
I dunno L3; there's already an abundance of evidence to demonstrate precisely the type of individual Obama is. Can anyone who has paid even the slightest attention over the last 3 years reasonably conclude that this is a principled, courageous, noble, and trustworthy man? Can anyone doubt his core beliefs, or question his deeply held conviction that "spreading the wealth" should be the primary task of government? Can any American fail to recognize the true essense of a man who would use the bully pulpit of the presidency to insult the very citizens who made this a prosperous a nation and suggest that they had nothing to do with their own success?
The problem, it seems to me, is not a lack of evidence, but the refusal of the American public to hear it. You can't fix stupid.
Teflon93 | 8.13.12 @ 7:57PM
You can't beat something with nothing either.
Barack Obama is a committed leftist ideologue. His fellow leftists are coming out in force again in November, in addition to the usual coalition of gladhanders, gravy trainers, media hair helmets, and the honored dead.
How exactly is Romney going to take it given his adamant policy of ignoring Tea Party conservatives, passing up opportunity after opportunity (such as Chick-Fil-A) to rally social conservatives, and continuing to defend his socialized medicine scheme along with the other entitlement programs bankrupting this country?
You can't beat something with nothing.
Trinacria| 8.14.12 @ 12:48AM
Yeah, you're right. F**k it, let's just jump off a bridge - ole Mitt clearly missed a giant opportunity to turn this ship around by taking a bold stand on a handful of fanny pirates who want to play dress up and register at Bloomingdales. Sixteen trillion dollars in debt, staggering unemployment, and runaway government by executive fiat all clearly pale in comparison to your pet social cause.
Grow up sport; in the real world you don't get everything you want. Take your ball and bat and go home if you want, but enough already with the incessant bitching and moaning. We're all stocked up here.
aware| 8.14.12 @ 6:40AM
When the choice is joining a parade over a cliff or taking my ball and bat home, I'll take the latter.
Trinacria| 8.14.12 @ 12:02PM
The problem with false choices is that they are, well...false choices. You're welcome to take your bat and ball and go home, but you seem to believe that doing so immunizes you against the peril of going over the cliff. It doesn't. It only paves the way for the clown that's currently driving the bus - full speed - toward the abyss.
Dai Alanye | 8.13.12 @ 8:24PM
Up next, "The influence Mark Twain had on the intellectual development of Paul Ryan. Is the VP candidate too fixated on the Mississippi River?"
Trinacria| 8.14.12 @ 1:05AM
This just in...reliable sources confirm reports that Ryan was an avid reader of Dr. Seuss in his formative preschool years. He's obviously been conspiring with the medical community since his earliest years...confirming his nefarious intent to destroy Medicare.
Bob Grant| 8.13.12 @ 10:49PM
Let's see:
Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan read Ayn Rand and earned money by driving the Oscar Mayer weiner mobile selling turkey bacon and lunchables
obama read Alinsky and drove around in the Choomwagon smoking reefer and endangering other people's live by driving dangerously.
Is there a cause and effect? ...
Indy| 8.14.12 @ 8:21AM
You forgot to mention Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's favorite Founding Father...
Has anyone seen 2016?
http://2016themovie.com/
Alexander| 8.18.12 @ 8:51AM
The difference, surely, is that Ryan has clearly and often identified Rand as a key influence on his life and intellectual development, as when speaking to political organizations and to the New Yorker biographer; has given speeches to Objectivist organizations; and has spoken of Rand for an incisive analysis of our current situation and spoken of her almost as a prophet. There is no comparable history with Obama for any of the figures you cite. Alinsky played a significant role in shaping Obama's community organizing strategies, and Rev. Wright was his pastor, but Obama has not made comparable statements about these figures in his life; the connection to Rashid Khalidi seems to essentially be that they were colleagues at the same university and that Obama attended his faculty seeing-off ceremony, and to Ayers, that they were on the boards of some of the same nonprofit organizations decades after Ayers had served time for his crimes and become a peaceable member of the community.