-
Not Just the Media: First Amendment Under Attack
May 22, 2013 | 3 comments
-
Curl is Right: Don’t Dismiss Benghazi
May 22, 2013 | 2 comments
-
Artur Davis Says Scandals Are Real
May 19, 2013 | 3 comments
-
Good New Book: ‘Precipice’
May 19, 2013 | 1 comment
-
A Long Record of Obamite Thuggery
May 16, 2013 | 4 comments
The Spectacle Blog
Look, Todd Akin wouldn’t be the nominee right now if it weren’t for Mike Huckabee’s endorsement. And he wouldn’t keep his support in the churches if Huckabee very publicly urged him to withdraw. Instead, Huckabee is acting as an enabler for Akin, putting Akin on his radio show in a way designed to try to salvage Akin’s now-hopeless candidacy. But this isn’t about Akin: It’s about the future of the country. Akin now is an almost certain lock to lose a seat that a conservative otherwise would win. That one seat could mean the difference between repealing ObamaCare or not repealing it. There are other pro-life Missouri Republicans who can win the race and who will vote to repeal ObamaCare. Without repealing ObamaCare, the demonstrably evil HHS mandate (evil because that which tramples religious liberty is intrinsically evil) could still go into effect. Even if Akin is too dim to see this on his own, it is incumbent on Huckabee to make him see it.
This is no time for niceties. This is a time for hardball. No matter what Akin meant to say, what he said is so ignorant and offensive as to be disqualifying. A moral leader, as Huckabee aspires to be, would see that, and use his considerable weight accordingly.
Sure, the left has a double standard on this sort of thing. State Sen. Barack Obama did not say “rape is rape” and must always be condemned when Lisa Myers showed rather convincingly that Bill Clinton told Juanita Broaddrick to “put some ice on that.” But that’s not what is at issue here. What is at issue here is, first of all, the idea of taking responsibility for one’s own inexcusable statements, and taking the punishment accordingly (i.e., it is Akin’s responsibility to withdraw); secondly, taking responsibility for an endorsement gone wrong and doing all in one’s power to correct it (i.e. Huck’s responsibility to try to force Akin from the race); and third, the responsibility of Akin and all his supporters to see the larger picture that shows, clearly, that he is hurting the very causes he says he wants to champion.
If Akin doesn’t get out of the race today, he is a louse of the first order. If Huck can help Akin prove he’s not a louse, Huck should do so.
View all comments (40) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/21/onus-is-on-huckabee-to-force-a
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Screwtape Talks Turkey
- The End of the Castros?
- Downton’s Class System — and Ours
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 10:42AM
Yes, by all means, let's play by Democrats' rules. That'll show 'em. Much better to lose to Claire McCaskill than have a Republican in there who said one incredibly stupid thing.
And we wonder why we keep losing?
The GOP is simply an extension of the Democrat party - the Washington Generals to the Dems' Harlem Globetrotters.
It's our job to play by their rules.
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 11:14AM
GRZ:
Akin made the front page of the WSJ this morning. This event, whether we like it or not, likely has cost the GOP a senate seat and perhaps MOs' electoral votes.
He needs to quit. The GOP must recognize and embrace the double standard and thereby be above reproach. Then, we can rightly be incensed and attack when those of Bidens' ilk make pandering, despicable, race baiting statement like he did.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 11:31AM
Absolutely, Al Adab: Better to lose the game with clean uniforms than win it with dirty ones.
We must only run perfect human beings who never make mistakes, who cannot even be smeared by mainstream media lies. Any day now, we're going to develop such an ubermenschen in our secret laboratories.
Why the hell even try? Oops. I guess this is one of Emmet Tyrell's examples of America becoming more conservative, nudge nudge, wink wink.
BTW, the only conservative section of WSJ is the editorial page; the news coverage is decidedly liberal.
We can be rightly incensed and attack those of Biden's ilk? Yeah, what is the sound of one hand clapping on the moon?
The game is rigged, and the extent to which we play by the Dems' rules is the extent to which we deserve to lose. But then I'm becoming convinced that's the whole point. It's all a game - not even a game; it's entertainment, like the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals. We're all tacitly complicit in the metastasizing of the state.
We needn't look at the sacrifice we're offering the mainstream media in Akin (as if that will appease the liberal gods); notice how Romney's running on a historically Democrat plank: Obama's going to take away your medicare, but we'll preserve the redistribution of the wealth in perpetuity.
When you have the GOP running on being better at enshrining the welfare state, does it really matter who our next president is?
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 11:46AM
Oh c'mon Grz. You know I didn't say that. The point is Akin will lose as likely will any one appointed in his stead. The damge is done. Therefore, in this instance, we can stand for quality against The Left and not tolerate idiocy in our numbers.
BTW, your last sentence actually has a message. Since the GOP only promises to better manage the administrative social-welfare state not to end its tyranny, it would be better, in world historical perspective, that The Left receive their rightly deserved blame for the collapse of free markets and free men so the world may sooner rediscover liberty. If we are doomed to an inevitable dark age of tyranny, then future generations should understand that it was Statism and central planning redistributionist policies which caused the collapse. Churchill warned at the end of WWII that if the voters wanted a social-welfare state, it could only come through the imposition of some "gestapo" (his word) to enfroce its policies.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 12:04PM
Al Adab, this situation is a microcosm of why Tyrell is wrong that liberalism is dead. I have no doubt that Akin is a fool. But he could be OUR fool. Is not McCaskill a fool? Are not most politicians craven fools?
Perhaps if the paradigm were different, he wouldn't lose - if Repubs circled the wagons around wounded candidates like the Dems do with theirs, Akin's marginalization might not be a fait accompli. But of course that presupposes a cooperative media, and I agree that we don't live in such a world.
Hence our doom - the trajectory of this country is not going to change because popular culture determines good and bad, and the liberal, corrupt mainstream media create the popular culture.
As a result, our only choice is to play by their rules and promise that we'll give out goodies to constituents a bit more prudently than our more profligate opponents. Either way, it's all about giving away goodies, and there isn't a politician on planet earth who will even uttter the truth about what's required to save this country.
Ergo, it doesn't matter who our next president is.
Future generations will never understand that it was Statism and central planning that brought America down - the exact same thing will happen again, because human nature is immutable. Men want to be ruled, and prosperity's curse is that it invariably produces an ugly offspring, a hybrid of greed and vanity, by which men strangle first the "OTHER," and then themselves.
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 12:30PM
McCaskill is a fool, DWS is an idiot, Biden is demented etc, etc. Better we give The Left a monopoly on stupid.
I share much of your pessimism about the future. Let us hope we are wrong.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 12:58PM
I know you do, Al Adab; ultimately, we're on the same side.
But you cannot win with intelligence and moral rectitude if the qualities your society prizes the most are stupidity and immorality. It's just that simple.
You cannot prove a causal universe exists if the zeitgeist has declared a moratorium on reality, as liberalism has done.
I watched a video with Paul Krugman the other day, attempting to rubut a scathing refutation of Keynesianism delivered by Spanish economist Pedro Schwartz last year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8LmE5cfQKA).
I cannot fathom how people like Krugman and his many NY Times reading, NPR listening, compassion mongering, vainglorious fools can still believe in Keynesianism. It would be more plausible to believe in the Easter Bunny.
But that's the world in which we live, and Keynesianism is of a piece with the false consciousness that is promulgated daily by the mainstream media, our culture factory.
aware| 8.21.12 @ 4:59PM
If you would look at Keynesianism as the political theory it is instead of an economic theory it pretends to be, you would see it is an over the top success. The explosive growth of the modern State would be impossible without it.
It is THE religion of the State. Krugman is like the traveling evangelist but its the Benackes and Paulsons that do the real sacrifices on the alter, making them the high Priests.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 5:16PM
Agreed - the only reason Keynesianism is alive and well today is because it it's the magic fairy dust that gives governments carte blanche to spend ad infinitum.
It's like the old perpetual motion machines of old - what do you do when you get into debt? Get into MORE debt! All of those "minus" signs will magically turn into "plus" signs! Is Keynes great or what?
Politicians usually get away with - indeed prosper from - this malarkey as long as they exit the political arena before the music stops.
Well, the music is probably going to stop in 2013 - and I believe it will be while Romney is president. Guess what that means? A Democrat sweep in congressional elections in 2014 and a Democrat preident in 2016.
Maybe Sean Penn will get out of Venezuela long enough to run for president. On the other hand, there won't be much left to preside over.
aware| 8.21.12 @ 6:46PM
With the right false flag we don't even get to 2013. If it wasn't already too late, I'd say the real problem is in the fact that there is no real opposition to amount to anything in the US(formally America). Both "parties" fully support the primacy of the central State.
A colossal crime has taken place under our noses. It's been going on for quite a while now, way before Obama was even born. We are being dragged inexorably into a fascist police/garrison State that even exceeds national boundaries. It is sold as globalism, "free trade", and multiculturalism.
Your choices are being proscribed every day, which is tantamount to having your choices made for you. Some of the choices you didn't even know you had before they're taken away. So you don't even know it has happened.
With, and in spite of, every election the grip tightens.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 7:13PM
I believe the mainstream media, and Ben Bernanke, will not allow a collapse before the election. Then you're into the holidays. So, while it's possible the sh*t could hit the fan before 2013, I think it's unlikely. I'm not even sure it'll happen in 2013, but that would be my guess. I suppose some of it depends on the next "quantitative easing," i.e., revving up the printing press.
And I agree that we've been down this road for a long time; in fact, I don't believe Obama is the disease. He is the symptom of the rotted American psyche that brought this angry non-entity to power on nothing but a shoeshine and a phony smile - and every mainstream media powerhouse on the planet kissing his behind.
Would that America had heeded Mencken's words: "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve."
The sad reality is that most Americans would rather be subjects than free people.
Occam's Tool| 8.21.12 @ 11:49AM
If I recall, McCaskill is a crook, no?
aware| 8.21.12 @ 4:40PM
You are rarely proved wrong if you just assume all politicians are crooks. It's one of those jobs that overwhelmingly attracts crooks. Most of the time charlatans and crooks.
fmm| 8.21.12 @ 4:56PM
And when did that matter to the dems? Say Chicago and Illinois.
Martin| 8.21.12 @ 10:54AM
I have now come to the firm conclusion that Akin must stay -- and the loathsome Cornyn must grow up and supply him with the money he needs. He won a primary fair and square, his views on abortion are no secret (if poorly expressed in that one instance.) It is very important indeed that we stand up to the political correctness behemoth, otherwise nobody but liberals will ever be allowed to represent us. There are already appalling liberal Republican Congresswomen, who could never have won a primary in a million years, coming out and trying to claim the seat.
If we lose the seat, tant pis. The principle is MUCH more important in the long run.
Stop panicking, Hillyer, and tell your other spineless, witless colleagues to do likewise.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 11:15AM
No, no Martin. Here's the way it works:
If you're a Democrat, you can be a member of the KKK and rise to Speaker of the House; you can kill a woman while taking her home to commit adultery with her and rise to become the "Lion of the Senate;" you can destroy the careers of innocent doctors by pressing frivolous lawsuits and come within a hair's breadth of becoming vice president; you can cheat on your taxes and become the Secretary of the Treasury; you can lie your way to four Purple Hearts in 16 weeks in Viet Nam and be nominated to run for president; you can rape a woman and receive oral sex in the Oval Office from a 24-year old intern and become the Elder Statesman of your party; you can be an obvious Marxist (obvious, that is, to everyone but the Mainstream Media, the popular culture and lickspittle Republicans) and become President with no resume whatsoever - you can do all that with full-throated support and self-righteous covering fire from fellow Democrats, BUT - you CANNOT misspeak ONE TIME if you are a Republican candidate for the senate in Missouri. If you do, don't worry about the Dems - every GOP pol and pundit will pay tribute to liberalism by gleefully riding you out of town on a rail within 2 hours.
Sounds about right to me.
fmm| 8.21.12 @ 11:25AM
The GOP rightly calling out a fool is not liberalism, it is action based on principles. Liberalism is accepting any bad behavior from one of their own as long as that person will contribute to the liberal cause. Furthermore, Akin can not easily describe what he really meant, admitting that his thinking is not clear by apologizing instead, making the problem his alone. He should drop the ego act and withdraw!
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 11:43AM
Yup. It's always much better to lose to a Democrat while retaining our purity.
With enemies like the GOP, the Dems really don't need friends.
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 11:50AM
The GOP is the enemy of the Conservative Movement. The republican elite has opposed the Movement since it beginning when George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller campaigned against a Conservative GOP candidate who knowingly sacrificed himself to create the Movement. Remember?
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 12:42PM
I'm guessing you're referring to Goldwater.
I agree completely. It's a canard. Since 1964, we've had exactly one truly conservative candidate (Reagan) who, in actuality, subjugated a lot of fiscal conservatism to the Tip O'Neill-led congress and to political reality. The reason for this is simple: We live in a liberal country.
The critical mass of Americans don't REALLY want conservatism. Look at how the main plank in our platform is the preservation of Medicare - a system that, even under Ryan's plan, is 100% unsustainable (because Ryan's assumptions about GDP growth and interest rates are FANTASY).
The truth is that Medicare must go. Social security must go. Medicaid must go. Student loans must go. Welfare must go. Not just be reformed - they must be jettisoned. The ship is sinking, and, "conservative" republicans expect a pat on the back for making a show of bailing out teaspoonsful of water - while ignoring the many gaping holes in the ship of state (with the tacit complicity of the electorate).
Not to mention the rotted main mast on our ship - the dying U.S. dollar.
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 1:34PM
I fear that you are correct and that the majority desire a large, administrative Social-welfare state. That sadly is the road to tyranny as only an all powerful central authority can use the Force necessary to demand peoples property (their incomes) from them and redistribute it to the favored class. The entire structure of the welfare state is, as you note, based on false assumptions and disproven theories. That is why Statism, by whatever name, is actually a Faith a secular religion seeking a heaven on earth, a chimerical outcome at best.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 2:45PM
I agree. Statism is synonymous with liberalism, and liberalism is indeed a religion.
And there are four kinds of acolytes in this religion:
1) Fools - those who believe that, as soon as capitalism and self-interest are expunged from society, the world will be a beautiful place; those who think human nature can be forced to adhere to this fantasy and that men will abjure self-interest simply because a gun is pointed at them (ignoring the inconvenient fact that it is nothing but self-interest that makes them comply against their wishes because it is preferable to being shot); those who are young and believe that government is inherently Good and Fair, and that society can and must be organized around the concepts of Good and Fair, even to the exclusion of prosperity, of freedom, of all happiness and, ultimately, even of Goodness and Fairness; those who live in cloistered, well-fed, well-appointed enclaves whose bounty is provided by unseen others - the academics, the students, the young, the guilty rich and the generally stupid.
2) Crooks: Those who exploit the fools.
3) Pawns: The downtrodden ignorant who are exploited by the crooks.
4) Vandals: Those who are angry that some people are wealthier, or smarter, or prettier than they, and want venegeance, and who have convinced themselves that rough justice is better than no justice and who have convinced themselves that destruction is as meritorious as creation.
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 3:15PM
That just about pegs it. What a sad state in which we find ourselves and human liberty.
I fear, as stated above, Akin will cost the GOP this Senate seat; possibly MOs electoral votes and thereby the election.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 3:22PM
What you fear may well come to pass, although I think there's a lot more ill will toward Obama than is reflected in the polls. I think many people, in their heart of hearts, don't like him.
One of the categories of fools I forgot to mention above is the hopelessly vain: those who want to be perceived as selfless and compassionate, and who believe that the assimilation and regurgitation of liberal dogma will confer that halo Goodness upon them.
I think a lot of those people, those who aren't brain dead, will vote for Romney even if they lie about it to their friends.
But, unfortunately, I don't think it matters if we go over the cliff at 90 mph under Obama or 85 mph under Romney. We're screwed either way.
fmm| 8.21.12 @ 12:37PM
The other two GOP primary candidates are very acceptable and they both polled with larger advantages against McCaskill than Akins. He needs to withdraw.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 12:43PM
I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that McCaskill's seat is now safe - as soon as Akin withdraws, which I'm guessing he'll do within three hours.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 7:18PM
Update - well, I was proven wrong. Akin is hanging in there. I still think he'll be gone within two days. No way he survives the wall of opposition from the Castrated Old Party.
Now that Karl Rove is on the case, we know where the Establishment Republicans stand (gee, what a surprise). For that reason alone I'd like to see Akin stay in the race. Either way, the Dems have won this one.
fmm| 8.21.12 @ 11:28AM
Didn't know that Huckabee endorsed this clown - that in itself is enough for conservatives to not support Akin. Don't expect Huckabee to act for the good of the GOP or the country, he is in politics for himself like most good RINO liberals.
Occam's Tool| 8.21.12 @ 11:48AM
Oy. All this guy had to do was say he is pro-Life and will make it a Litmus test for SCOTUS nominees. That's all his POV is about, anyway.
But I am getting tired of the Libtard double standard. If he stays in, we should arrange for him to WIN!
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 12:50PM
Yes, Occam, I agree with you (guess that's no surprise).
But there isn't a judge in America who would overturn Roe v. Wade. It'll never, ever happen, so the whole litums test is really a proxy for the real issue: Are you an originalist, or do you believe in penumbras? This will matter as future judges will continue to deem it "constitutional" for future politicians to declare the original Constitution unconstitutional.
As John Roberts proved, the heat in Washington melts conservative values in all but the most stalwart.
How come liberal SCOTUS members never seem to evolve toward conservatism?
Al Adab| 8.21.12 @ 1:35PM
Because GRZ, "Power corrupts and absolute Power corrupts absolutely."
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 1:49PM
True dat, as the literate kids say.
And what power doesn't corrupt, the beltway cocktail circuit rots.
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.21.12 @ 3:25PM
Because, liberal-progressives are adherents of a utopian ideal. It's a secularized version of Christian eschatology. Trying to get a liberal to move toward conservativism would require him to give up his faith in his secular eschatology.
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 4:03PM
But, in a way, that begs the question: Why do so many conservatives, many ostensibly possessed of Christian eschatology, move toward liberalism?
After all, we all have a belief rubric, yet most of the apostasy is erstwhile conservatives adopting the religion of liberalism and not the other way around.
Many of our Republican politicians go to Washington with conservative instincts, only to become RINOs once they breathe the rarefied air inside the beltway.
It seems to me that simple vanity or peer pressure (or the overwhelming herd instinct that typifies many fools) explains most of this phenomenon. The truth is, it's just cooler to be liberal in our ever-increasingly puerile society.
And since liberalism is never held responsible for the consequences of its policies, and since one may enter the golden circle of the Anointed Liberals merely by spouting liberal bromides and not by acts, the liberal can look into the mirror of popular culture and see only pure and unsullied goodness reflected back at him.
Pretty sweet deal - self-beatification at a very cheap price.
aware| 8.21.12 @ 5:06PM
Maybe because the Leviathan is no longer affected by the material inserted in the front, if it ever was.
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.21.12 @ 9:43PM
Well, I was explaining why liberals don't become conservatives. Your explanation is probably right in terms of why conservatives become liberal -- Injustice Roberts apparently was much influenced by his concern over what that g-dammed rag, the New York Times, might think of him.
aware| 8.21.12 @ 6:54PM
Meanwhile at mittromney.com:
"As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts...."
Makes you just want to call up and donate scads of FRNs to his campaign, doesn't it?
Grzmlyk| 8.21.12 @ 7:22PM
Ah, yes: Mitt Romney: Democrat Lite.
Does anybody think this guy will do anything but kick the can down the road as far as he can?
No doubt he'll have a "healing summit" at the White House his first week in office, bringing in Democrats and Independents to forge a new working relationship. And, as a good-faith gesture, he'll vow to keep the "more popular" aspects of Obamacare.
Bob K| 8.21.12 @ 2:20PM
You are kidding aren't you?
Akin wouldn't have won the nomination without Huckabee's endorsement?!!?
Get serious! This is a near hallucination! Breath in and out of a paper bag for a while!
MRD| 8.21.12 @ 3:14PM
Akin needs to remove himself from the race. I firmly believe all unborn children are entitled to their right to life, regardless of the circumstances of their conception. There are ways to defend this premise directly and indirectly that are effective. One might for starters cite the voice of women who were themselves conceived of in this terrible manner like pro-life activist and attorney Rebbeca Kiessling. Mr. Akin's comments are not accurate, they are insensitive to those victimized by rape. He is now discredited and if he stays in the race he will diminish support for the pro-life cause. Someone unabashedly pro-life needs to tell him bow out. This would seem to be a good time for Mr. Huckabee to act.