The GOP’s circular firing squad …

… continues apace.

Ramesh Ponnuru laments:

That’s the approach that Jeffrey Kuhner takes to intra-conservative polemics. He attacks David Frum, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Newt Gingrich, and me. We’re supposedly a bunch of Limbaugh-hating, Giuliani-supporting “elitists” who want to “abandon” the defense of the unborn. Yup, that’s me, all right. We’re also “effete” and “amateur Machiavellians.” Kuhner goes after Frum for being soft on immigration, which he isn’t; and he suggests that voters don’t care about health care. It is difficult to exaggerate how stupid the whole piece is. Apparently Kuhner has a regular column in the Washington Times.

Trojan Horse infiltrates the Corner?

I think Ponnuru got totally taken by this liberal “reader” of the Corner. Don’t know if it’s a right wing doctrinaire movement member, or an actual liberal pushing the GOP toward electoral suicide. At any rate it is pretty funny.

I’ll repost the whole thing so you can decide for yourself:

Liberal Advice   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

From a reader:

As a liberal I appreciate your efforts and those of other conservatives to keep things clear in the aftermath of the Republican defeat. As a political scientist, I think “reformist” Republicans are generally not developing a very sound analysis of their party’s problems. Any party, left, right, or anything else, would have been seriously affected by the economic crisis of today if it had a president in office at the time. There was really no way McCain could avoid being lumped together with Bush, and thus get tarred with the same brush.

As for social conservatism as a problem, I think just the opposite is true. Social conservatives are the core of the party and the party’s strategists and professional chatterers should never get too far from that core.

My advice to the Republicans is this: Now is the time to cull insufficiently conservative politicians and opinion leaders from the party. The party needs to become much more self-consciously right-wing and ideologically intransigent. Between now and the next presidential election, conservatives need to complete their full take-over of the party and need to do everything they can to mobilize Americans in the name of conservatism.

By 2012, party strategists should have a very clear idea about what they want to do. They should have several right-wing potential candidates willing and able to broaden the appeal of the party. But the appeal of the party should be understood as the appeal of conservatism, not some opportunistic set of compromises with the left. Such an approach won’t work.

While I certainly do not wish conservatives or Republicans well, I want them to stand for what they truly believe, and make their appeal to the American voting public on that basis. Think right, run right, govern right. Anything less will only disappoint all of you.

 

12/11 03:55 PM

There is Hope …

… at the National Review’s Corner.

From the link:

The View from Harlem   [Mike Potemra]

 

It happened, almost too quickly, what everyone was waiting for. Is it really possible to sneak up on a crowd of many thousands of people? At 11 PM, the big-screen TV at the corner of 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem went very briefly silent, and blank; and then a graphic silently popped up, “Barack Obama Elected 44th President.” It seemed to take forever for the crowd’s resulting murmur to coalesce into a shout, and then a roar. This was not a wish or a test pattern, this was it.

 

The scene was Congressman Charlie Rangel’s block party celebrating the election of Barack Obama. People of all races and ages were there on this mild Manhattan evening, and they were in a festive mood even before the big news was announced. American flags abounded; a platform preacher repeated “God bless America, God bless America.”

 

Why was I, a John McCain voter, there? A bit of personal history. I was born in 1964, and on the day I was born the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Prince Edward County in Virginia had to reopen its public schools. The county had closed the schools because they decided it was better to have no public schools at all than to have to admit black kids into them. Here we are, just 44 years later, with an African-American president, a president elected with the electoral votes of that very same Commonwealth of Virginia.

 

I voted for John McCain because I admire him immensely as a person, and agree with him on many more issues than I do with Senator Obama. And I ask a rhetorical question: Can we McCain voters, without embarrassment, shed a tear of patriotic joy about the historic significance of what just happened? And I offer a short, rhetorical answer.

 

Yes, we can.

 

11/05 12:44 AM

Reax to Obama’s infomercial

From Culture11. I’ve yet to add the site to my blogroll — but I bet I do. If you are looking for interesting, intelligent and forward-thinking (read: these bloggers understand Sarah Palin is the death of the GOP, not its savior) blogging from the right side of the aisle, you could do worse than visiting Culture11 every day.

Sure it’s fun to read the increasing crazy at the Corner and Ace of Spades and some of the other usual suspects, but in reality I much prefer to read good, conservative arguments and reasoned thought. You can get that at the Daily Dish, but the loony right wing has somehow decided Andrew Sullivan is, what? His gayness is out, but he’s a closet liberal? Hardly, but he is a principled conservative thinker from more a Tory standpoint than the evangelical nutjobs that currently hold the GOP hostage.

Back to Obama’s infomercial — here’s Freddie deBoer’s take from that link way up in the first sentence:

Three thoughts occur to me in response to Obama’s infomercial.

The first is that this production shows again the great folly of the McCain campaign’s decision to bet the election on “otherizing” Obama. I think anyone who watched, and wasn’t already in the tank against Obama, would be very hard pressed indeed to see this man as a radical, or a terrorist, or a socialist out to steal their money. I think that they would be very hard pressed to see him as someone who they couldn’t trust, or who they “just didn’t know about.” I think that they would find him reassuring. I think that they would find him refreshingly normal, refreshingly American. I think that they would see him as a decent, loving family man.

Of course, that’s not sufficient, for a Presidential candidate. It’s not enough to be decent, or a good husband and father. It’s not enough to be normal, or American. It’s not enough to be not a radical. But this is the bed that the McCain campaign has made: when they made the election about Barack Obama’s basic decency, about his normalcy, when they insisted that the reason to oppose him was because he represented some terrifying unknown, they set the bar for the Obama campaign incredibly low. It turns out that proving you’re not some terrorist-sympathizing socialist with a crazy foreign name isn’t that high of a hurdle to clear. And once cleared, the McCain campaign’s own rhetoric damages them. If what’s important is that whether or not Americans can trust him, the answer for most of us is clear: yes, we can. After claiming for six months or so that the appropriate question for a Presidential candidate is whether he is a trustworthy American, America appears poised to accept that question, and in the case of Barack Obama, answer in the affirmative.

A hope, a prayer and a little bit of magic …

… from K-Lo. Man, the Corner is just sad these days. Bill is rolling in his grave with ferocity.

From the link:

Be Optimistic!   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I woke up this morning with a bad cold, throat closed off, and things not looking good. A nap, some drugs, and a lot of OJ later, I’ve made a turnaround.

I am interpreting it as a physical sign of the political turnaround to come. Hey, if it works . . .

With Fred Thompson speaking truth to pessimism, Sarah Palin on the road, and everyone doing his part to use Stanley Kurtz and Andy McCarthyas your weekend talking points, fowarding Robby George and other previews of life under Obama, and using David Freddosoas your coffetable book when you have friends over (have undecided friends over!), things can turnaround for John McCain. This election is close and nowhere near over.

 

10/24 03:04 PM

Maybe they ought to post a suicide hotline number in the office bathrooms. The “big tent” seems to be more a dead tree, three skinny sticks and a tattered piece of canvas borrowed from the hobo on, wait for it, the Corner.

Couldn’t help myself. I’ll be here all week folks. Happy hour’s from noon to midnight and if you order your porterhouse blue rare it is on the house.

Rich “Starbursts” Lowry and the low state of the Corner

I didn’t blog on this when it first appeared, but did get a good chuckle. It’s become an internet meme that may well outlast this election (too bad, there Rich). For anyone who feels lost when someone references “Rich ‘Starbursts’ Lowry” here’s the original in all its cringe-worthy goodness.

The Corner post from the link:

Friday, October 03, 2008

Projecting through the Screen   [Rich Lowry]

 

A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It’s one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O’Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can’t be learned; it’s either something you have or you don’t, and man, she’s got it.

 

10/03 12:08 PM

The average reaction around the blogosphere that afternoon was, “He wasn’t talking about getting wood there was he?”

Now it’s just an easy punchline. One more arrow for the increasingly easy target that is National Review Online. I like the Corner. It’s in my blogroll because I still try and read it regularly, but man it’s getting harder and harder because it’s like watching the short bus get hit by a freight train. Frum, Derbyshire — jump off, jump off while you can and save yourselves. 

Even small minds …

… have large thoughts every now and then.

Jonah Goldberg at the Corner:

I’ve been thinking about it and I think the bottom line on Palin is pretty simple. If she does a good job at the convention and survives about three weeks of serious media scrutiny — no horrible gaffes, no unforgivable I-don’t-knows to gotchya questions (fair and unfair), no botched hostile interviews — she will emerge as the single most inspired VP pick in modern memory and she will give the Democrats migraines for a long time to come, assuming there are no terrible skeletons we don’t know about. But, if she screws up in the next three weeks, gives the press and the late night comedians sufficient fodder to Quayelize her, she’ll be seen as anything from a liability to an outright horrible pick. That’s it.

I guess reality is kicking in 24 hours later for the knee-jerks. It’s so strange to see the “upstart outsider” candidate in Obama immediately become the calm, collected and, conservative in terms of the situation, option.

McCain, the insider “maverick,” will only look more like a dirty old man and what the Brits call an OAP (old age pensioner) next to his presumptive veep pick and opponent after this week’s events.

Michelle Obama and “whitey”

Here’s a link to a pretty good dissection of the rumor going around that there’s some video of Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” at some forum that seems to keep changing venues depending on who’s dispensing this bit of unfounded conjecture.

The conceit is a video exists of Michelle Obama speaking at an unidentified forum as part of a panel including, once again depending on who is dispensing the rumor, possibly the devil himself, and as part of her rant she denounces “whitey” and how caucasians are keeping others down.

I’m certainly not going to say such a video doesn’t exist, but there’s absolutely no proof she ever made such a statement. Barrack has gone on the offensive to tamp down these rumors, and my personal guess is if this video existed in any form it would be on YouTube, Fox News and media outlets sundry by now.

As it stands the “rumor” has percolated since last week and no video has been produced. All the bloggers and talking heads who bring it up can do no better than talk about how someone they know knows someone who’s seen the video in question.

So far, this is a classic urban legend FOAF story — a Friend Of A Friend told me about …

I wouldn’t call this totally debunked, but given it’s overripe nature time-wise with no tangible proof, I’d say it’s a solid 95%+ debunked.

From the first link:

On Monday I blogged about the rumors of a video that shows Michelle Obama making hateful comments about “whitey.” I’m now convinced that Larry Johnson, the blogger who’s done the most to make the rumors public, is spreading misinformation. At the least, he’s been unable to stick to his story.

And:

Until he comes out with a video tape that shows at least one of the many rumored “Michelle speeches,” I think that’s the last we need to hear from Larry Johnson.

Update: Here’s a little debunking from the right over at the Corner —

Why Does the Michelle Obama Tape Rumor Match a 2006 Novel?

 

Sometimes, this rumor of this alleged tape of Michelle Obama denouncing “whitey” sounds like something out of a clichéd political thriller novel.

Actually, it sounds exactly like something out of a clichéd political thriller novel. Specifically, Stephen Frey’s The Power Broker, published in 2006 by Ballantine Books.

A major plot line of the novel is the presidential campaign of Democrat Jesse Wood, aiming to be the country’s first African American president — “Wood was handsome, smart, charismatic, and being mentioned increasingly often in the press as someone who could unite a twenty-first century America growing more, not less, racially and economically divided.” (p.35)

From later in the post:

Why is a conservative blogger putting this much effort into dispelling a rumor that, on paper at least, would hurt Obama? Because those who prefer a president besides Obama should not go through the summer and fall convinced that a magic-bullet devastating tape is going to appear as an October surprise to save the day.

Also, there are a lot of good reasons to vote against Barack Obama; but what people claim Michelle Obama says on a tape that no one can produce and no one has seen isn’t one of them.

 

 

More reactions to Obama’s race speech

You can find my part one here and part three here.

Here’s some more reactions around the right and left parts of the blogosphere.

From the Corner:

Have I missed the competition?    [Charles Murray]

I read the various posts here on “The Corner,” mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama’s speech. Then I figured I’d better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn’t). I’ve just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I’m concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we’re used to from our pols…. But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie.

Also from the Corner:

My Two Cents and Bottom Lines   [Cliff May]

Barack Obama gives a good speech — better than most of his congressional colleagues. But at this stage in his life and career, he’s not yet who he wishes to seem.

Obama’s supporters will now say: “Enough. Let’s move on.”

Hillary supporters will say: “We agree. Enough. Let’s move on.” But they will whisper: “You don’t think those evil Republicans will use this against him in the fall? He’s damaged goods.”

Independents will be split — they always are, that’s their job. But fewer will see him as they did: a different breed of politician, one who transcends race and party, an agent of beneficient and desirable “change.”

Conservatives are less likely to think an Obama presidency would be not so bad, and more likely to  see McCain as the lesser evil.

And one more from the Corner:

So, I just watched Barack Obama’s big race speech on YouTube. I haven’t yet read or heard any reaction or analysis. So, please forgive me if I repeat what has already been said.

My first reaction? Race speeches are rarely good, and this was no exception. For all of Obama’s new talk of change, courage, politics you can believe in, I heard a whole lot of liberal boilerplate dressed up in euphemism and offering no fresh solutions.

From Little Green Footballs:

Obama Attempts Double Back Flip

Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 9:05:24 am PST

Drudge Reporthas the transcript of Barack Obama’s speech, and it was just as weak as you thought it would be. Amazingly, Obama is sticking with the “cherry-picking” defense.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

From Obsidian Wings:

That’s Why I Say Hey Man Nice Speech

by publiusFirst impression – good speech. I wasn’t entirely convinced it was a good idea to do it, but I think it will play well – and certainly better than Romney’s. What I liked about it in particular was not so much the arguments themselves (which were good), but the unwillingness to fold in the face of media pressure.To back up, I think the relentless multiple-news cycle coverage of Wright has been absurd – and rooted in old stereotypes of the black community as a hotbed of angry nationalists. My fear was that Obama, in opting to give the speech, was giving into the trumped up and bogus frenzy. While I knew this specific controversy would pass, my more general fear was that Obama the candidate and president would be pressured to twist in the Beltway winds.

Here’s a link to a slew of reviews at Daily Kos.

The law of unintended consequences …

… in action. the NY governor falls, Wall Street rises. This is going to be my only post on the Eliot Spitzer situation.

From the Corner:

Dow Sees Biggest Gain in Five Years   [Stephen Spruiell]

The Fed’s latest injection of liquidity into the market, or a rampant outbreak of Spitzerfreude-related euphoria? I have to think the fact that everyone on Wall Street is in a good mood had something to do with it.

03/11 04:45 PM

I think there’s actually something behind this little theory. Spitzer was roundly hated on Wall Street dating back to his days as NY’s attorney general.

William F. Buckley, RIP

William F. Buckley, founder of the National Review and one of the architects of conservatism in the United States over the last half centry, died this morning at the age of 82.

This is from the editors at the National Review:

When Buckley started National Review — in 1955, at the age of 29 — it was not at all obvious that anti-Communists, traditionalists, constitutionalists, and enthusiasts for free markets would all be able to take shelter under the same tent. Nor was it obvious that all of these groups, even gathered together, would be able to prevail over what seemed at the time to be an inexorable collectivist tide. When Buckley wrote that the magazine would “stand athwart history yelling, ‘Stop!’” his point was to challenge the idea that history, with a capital H, pointed left. Mounting that challenge was the first step toward changing history’s direction. Which would come in due course.

Here’s a remembrance of Bill from NRO’s the Corner:

Bluntly Buckley   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From House whip Roy Blunt: “William F. Buckley was more than a journalist or commentator. He was the indisputable leader of the conservative movement that laid the groundwork for the Reagan Revolution. Every Republican owes him a debt of gratitude for his tireless efforts on behalf of our party and nation. “While Mr. Buckley’s successes are vast, his longest lasting influence will always be through the work of the National Review – a magazine he founded more than five decades ago to give a voice to the brand of conservativism we associate with the modern Republican Party. Even though Mr. Buckley is no longer with us, the impact he has made will forever serve as a monument to the achievements of this honorable man.”

02/27 01:43 PM

The Corner weighs in …

… on the “picture.”

Obama Pic A Mistake    [Peter Wehner]

A few thoughts on this Obama photo that was circulated by the Clinton campaign, published on the Drudge Report. The first is that it is a sign of the desperation of Team Clinton. The second is that it is pretty nasty stuff, with its “he’s a Muslim and it should bother you” undertone. For the record, Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim, and the photo should not bother anyone (I recall President Bush had to wear some pretty wild outfits when he attended the APEC summits). And third, this will backfire in a big way. Twenty-four hours from now I suspect we’ll see virtually the entire Democratic establishment, and many others, condemning this tactic. It’ll advance the storyline that the Clinton campaign is spinning out of control – lurching from melancholy valedictory comments one day to faux outrage the next – and in its dying days.

During tomorrow evening’s debate, Hillary Clinton will be on the defensive and very much regret this stupid and ugly effort.

Other than that, it was a swell idea.

Smoke filled rooms and superdelegates

It’s becoming pretty clear by the math that Clinton will require support of the superdelegates to win the nomination over Obama. Lanny Davis, a Clinton supporter, recently offered an odd defense of the superdelegate process.

Here’s a great Corner post ripping that idea a new one:

That’s Just Super   [James S. Robbins]

I was interested in Lanny Davis’s defense of superdelegates in which he noted that “The ‘smoke-filled rooms’ of Democratic Party leaders had led to the nomination and election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy. Not bad.” Looking beyond the fact that Stevenson lost in both his bids to become President, this is a very short list. What about the rocket-ride candidacy of John W. Davis, selected at the 1924 convention on the 103rd ballot? Lots of smoke in those rooms. He grabbed 29 percent of the popular vote in November, against Calvin Coolidge. The Republicans even won New York City. Then there was James M. Cox in 1920, who had scored a more impressive 34 percent in his race. And who can forget the three defeats of smoke-filled-room veteran William Jennings Bryan? By all means, stoke up those stogies.

02/14 12:21 PM

Go to hell in the UK

This website is great. It lists entrances to hell around the UK. Click on a few of the listings. Funny, funny stuff. Sites like these remind me of the wild and woolly olden days of internet yore — like B2K (before the year two thousand.)

(Hat tip: the Corner)

Bill Maher freaks the right wing

Wow. The Corner (a site I like and include in my blogroll) is aided and abetted in thinskinness here. A Cornerite, Jonah Goldberg, was exposed as the intellectual midget he is on Bill Maher’s HBO show this past weekend.

The reaction from the freaky right is almost comical. Of course this is the same bunch that didn’t realize the Bush 43 regime isn’t the least bit conservative, and thought Ron Paul was an anomaly.

Tax reform colored Green

Interesting concept from David Freddoso at the Corner. He combines tax reformation with environmentalism. Doesn’t sound workable in practice to me, but any tax reform ideas always get my attention.

From the post:

At times — and not just after a few drinks — I’ve thought about what would happen if we scrap the income tax and go to an energy consumption tax. It would look a lot like the Fair Tax, with a pre-bate for basic levels of household energy usage. “The Green Fair Tax.” You’d pay all of your taxes at the pump and on your utility bill.

The benefits? Big energy users like Al Gore would pay tons in taxes, and normal people would pay very little. It would not distort markets as badly as our current tax code (almost nothing could). It would also be superior to a cap n’ trade system designed solely to benefit large corporations. The possibility is tempting because it could bring a lot of support from the Left as well.

Perhaps just a pipe-dream — but no harm in dreaming.

A gloomy prediction for conservatism’s future

Mark Steyn breaks out the doomsday forecast for conservatism quoting a Townhall blog.

From the post:

On the eve of Super Duper Tuesday, conservatives in this great republic could do with some pepping up. Instead, this turned up in my in-box:

First, demography is poised to destroy conservatism in a devastating triple threat. The baby boomers will start retiring, and will probably shift a little to the left in the process. Second, Mexican immigrants will most likely end up being pretty leftist. Finally, years of liberals running their own private indoctrination camps through the American education system have finally taken their toll and are churning out reliably liberal kids who will inevitably come of age. Not enough of them are conservatives and not enough of them will be mugged by reality to convert to conservatism. It is ultimately these three factors that threaten to sink conservatism for at least a couple decades.

Gulp. Anything else?

This was conservatives’ last chance… The only chance was for a really good conservative leader to be elected and make a Reaganesque impression on the country that would delay the liberal fate. If Romney is defeated tomorrow, that will not happen, and tomorrow will live in infamy as a monumental defeat for conservatism.

Obama a token?

I didn’t read the entire linked Washington Post op-ed penned by the novelist, and feminist, Erica Jong. I didn’t read it because the three grafs I did scan told me all I needed to know about the column. This Mark Hemingway post at the Corner rightly rips Jong for describing Obama’s candidacy and Colin Powell’s tenure at Foggy Bottom as “tokenism.”

Jong then frames her support for Clinton with the tattered and worn-out victim card comparing the respective plights of black Americans and the entire female gender. Nice.

From Hemingway’s post:

Finally, Jong wants duke it out over who’s been more oppressed — black people vs. mothers and children? Seriously? I hope that Clinton and her supporters do push this because I think I know how the American people will respond to yet another pathetic attempt to derive moral authority from victimhood — not well. The reason why Obama is liked by many Republicans is that he is campaigning as if the content of his character truly is more important than any vestigial constraints imposed by the color of his skin, and no one, especially not a pretentious hack like Erica Jong, is going to tell him that he’s a “token.”

02/05 12:37 AM

It looks like torture …

… is getting the same multiple post treatment the Ron Paul newsletter scandal received.

I don’t see torture as a left/right issue, and I’m always amazed at the apologists coming from the right. This is a good example from the Corner.

A source I’ve left out of previous posts on the subject is this article published in the New Yorker last August.

This quote from the article echoes my thoughts. It comes from Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a critic of the Bush administration’s use of “harsh interrogation” techniques:

… the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program, Senator Levin said, has undermined the public’s trust in American justice, both here and abroad. “A guy as dangerous as K.S.M. is, and half the world wonders if they can believe him—is that what we want?” he asked. “Statements that can’t be believed, because people think they rely on torture?”

(Update: to join a conversation on the subject leave a comment on this post)

McCain playing (and winning) political poker?

More teeth gnashing from the right after McCain’s decisive victory in Florida. The Corner is resorting to getting lucky/beating all odds poker analogies to explain the senator’s status as likely GOP nominee.

From the post by Rich Lowry:

… McCain is close to the presumptive nominee GOP nominee without having won self-identified Republican voters anywhere. What an extraordinary—and utterly unlikely—path to the nomination. Presumably, with his front-runner status enhanced, McCain will now begin to win self-identified Republicans, but he has pulled the political equivalent of an inside-straight to get here.

For those a bit poker lingo challenged, here’s a description of pulling an inside straight.

Enjoying that crow …

… Kathryn?