When Glenn Beck made his Fox debut, some shrewd conservatives responded with a wink. Maybe the show was paranoid and hysterical. Maybe Beck was none too scrupulous about facts and truth. But why be squeamish? The other side did as bad, or nearly. And see how usefully he mobilized the base!
Those shrewd conservatives assumed Beck was working for them. Big mistake. Beck is working for himself – and he chooses his targets according to his own scheme of priorities.
The newest target is Cass Sunstein, confirmed yesterday by the Senate as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget.
For more about Sunstein, see Tim Mak’s adjoining report. Bottom line: For those who champion free competitive markets, Cass Sunstein is about the best possible choice to be hoped for from a Democratic administration.
I arrive at this opinion through first hand knowledge. I studied in one of Cass Sunstein’s seminars at Harvard Law School, and witnessed for two hours per week the fair play of his mind. But it’s not only my opinion. It’s the opinion of: Chris DeMuth, past president of the American Enterprise Institute; of the Wall Street Journal editorial page; and of the editors of Cato’s Regulation magazine. And while Republican-appointed judges like Chief Justice John Roberts and Court of Appeals Judge Michael McConnell cannot properly express a view, I’d wager dollars-to-doughnuts they too support Sunstein: after all, he endorsed both of them.
Nor is it only American conservatives who admire Sunstein. British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has approvingly quoted Sunstein’s latest book, Nudge (co-authored with University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler).
Indeed, Cameron has recommended Sunstein’s work so forcefully that the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian sardonically calls Nudge, Cameron’s “favorite American import.”
So how is it that this man so admired by economic conservatives worldwide, this market-oriented economist, this endorser of Republican Supreme Court nominees, and – by the way – this constitutional scholar who has endorsed the Heller case expanding Second Amendment gun rights – how could he of all the 10,000 political appointees of the Obama administration become a demon figure to Fox TV’s new star?
The stated answer – watch here – is that Sunstein is a crazed animal rights fanatic who wants to grant monkeys the right to sue and allow people to execute their retarded children.
Now it might seem ambitious to try to defeat an administration nominee on the grounds that he is not cruel enough to animals. Here is what Sunstein himself has to say: Laws against animal cruelty have been on the books for years. (Oklahoma’s date back to 1887). They command broad assent, from conservatives as well as liberals. Sunstein argues against trying to enact new laws, and in favor of enforcing existing laws. It’s striking that Beck never actually quotes Sunstein. Beck instead relies instead on an argument from pure assertion: Sunstein opposes animal cruelty, the Princeton philosopher Peter Singer also opposes animal cruelty, therefore Sunstein must agree with everything Peter Singer has ever said or written.
This is beyond sloppy, beyond ignorant, proceeding straight toward the deceptive.
To anyone who knows anything – anything! – about what Cass Sunstein has actually written or actually said, it’s a travesty and scandal. And ironically enough, if successful, it would have been a travesty and scandal in which conservatives would find themselves the main victims.
Had Cass Sunstein somehow been stopped, the next OIRA nominee would certainly have been less favorable to markets, enterprise, and competition. The next nominee would not have supported John Roberts and Michael McConnell, would not have chaired seminars with the American Enterprise Institute, might not have been endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, and very likely would not have shared with conservatives so many of the values that Beck purports to uphold but in fact betrays.
Glenn Beck is not the first to make a pleasant living for himself by reckless defamation. We have seen his kind before in American journalism and American politics, and the good news is that their careers never last long. But the bad news is that while their careers do last, such people do terrible damage.
Republican senators know the truth about Cass Sunstein – that’s why only 33 Republican senators voted “no” on the cloture vote on his nomination, the vote that mattered. Yet unfortunately they also fear the wild disinformation broadcast by Fox News and credulously believed by millions of Fox viewers. So the final vote on the nomination of this best friend conservatives are likely ever to have inside the administration was 57-40, with only a handful of Republicans voting in favor.
The Senate’s most left-wing member, Bernie Sanders, intelligently voted “nay.” There’s one person at least who did not allow himself to be hustled out of his principles by a television loudmouth.
With only two exceptions, however, all the Senate’s Democrats present voted aye. That’s perhaps the final irony of this strange episode: I wonder whether so many liberals would have voted in favor of Sunstein if Beck had not denounced him.
The ultimate happy ending of the story should not however close the page on this appalling episode of broadcast recklessness and political cowardice. We conservatives are submitting our movement to some of the most unscrupulous people in American life. This submission disgraces conservatism, discredits Republicans, and damages the country. It’s beyond time for conservatives who know better to join us at NewMajority in emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.
206 responses so far
1 rbottoms // Sep 11, 2009 at 12:50 pm
“Good luck with that.”
~ Wolverine, X3
2 Houghton // Sep 11, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Thank you, David Frum. Just when I’d been ready to register as an independent and abandon my GOP roots, you turned me around again. You give me hope.
3 Churl // Sep 11, 2009 at 1:24 pm
After his triumphal drubbings of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, David Frum takes his cudgel to Glenn Beck.
4 LFC // Sep 11, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Glenn Beck is not the first to make a pleasant living for himself by reckless defamation. We have seen his kind before in American journalism and American politics, and the good news is that their careers never last long.
Do you mean like Limbaugh? Or maybe Hannity? Malkin? Kristol? Levin? Actually, we can probably expect Beck’s career to last a long time.
5 R.E. Munn // Sep 11, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I think Mr. Frum is essentially correct in this post, although he may perhaps have overstated the bona fides of Sunstein as a friend to conservatives. But who exactly considers Beck their leader? Mr. Frum has overstated the importance of this man, and, what’s more, he is consistent in this trait. David, you only serve to egg dopey people on with such tirades as this one. What else is bothersome is the invective which you deploy against those who you perceive as enemies among us, while at the same time lamenting the tone taken by some among us in attacking our actual political foes.
6 mycelf // Sep 11, 2009 at 1:59 pm
That’s the Frum I like to see.
7 kdoren // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I’m sure I’m not the only one to alert you to the fact that Glenn Beck is being investigated all over the internet, for something I know he didn’t do, but which he has not denied. Yada Yada Yada.
8 jabbermule // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Without Glenn Beck’s “reckless defamation” of Van Jones, the American people would never have found out about Mr Jones’ racially divisive style of politics, said in his own words. If Beck was just making this stuff up, then Obama never would have seen Jones as a political liability and certainly never would have asked him to resign.
Beck was the only conservative commentator who has the guts to call this out.
9 A Ku Indeed! » Archive » Frum on Beck // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:34 pm
[...] many of the other columnists seem like typical partisan ideologues. In any case, here’s a recent column by Frum taking on Glenn Beck and his growing [...]
10 balconesfault // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Do you mean like Limbaugh? Or maybe Hannity? Malkin? Kristol? Levin? Actually, we can probably expect Beck’s career to last a long time.
I’m thinking that we can. There were 55 million registered Republican voters in 2008. Beck is getting around 2.7-2.8 million viewers on a good night.
If the number of registered Republicans and Beck fans starts to converge … even if the number ends up being below 20 million … it’s a huge win for Beck and Fox.
The nice thing about a full-on attack campaign against a Sunstein is that everyone who ever voted to confirm, or even said something nice about him, is now going to be in Beck’s sights. The line shifts further to the extreme, and those to the left of the line are granted RINO status. You’re getting there quickly, David.
11 NotFooledTX // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:59 pm
“The ultimate happy ending of the story should not however close the page on this appalling episode of broadcast recklessness and political cowardice. We conservatives are submitting our movement to some of the most unscrupulous people in American life. This submission disgraces conservatism, discredits Republicans, and damages the country. It’s beyond time for conservatives who know better to join us at NewMajority in emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.”
That’s the money quote there, but Mr. Frum, judging from the majority of the comments, you’d do better talking to your dining room table.
The republican party is now the party of fearmongers, propagandists, liars, nutcases, bigots and the unprincipled. Republicans primary goals is to win elections, not legislature, not governance, just winning. The bush admin was a dismal failure for the republican party – and instead of realizing and correcting their mistakes, they’ve gone literally crazy pandering to their fringe base. Why on earth would any moderate or independent want to be a party to that nonsense? If you’re asking this independent, my answer is I don’t. The behavior of the republican party since the run up to the election has been disgusting – they have lost all sense of civility, decency and duty to country. They scorn intellect and praise ignorant vitriol.
I’ve seen enough, I’m not walking away from the republican party, I’m running away as fast as my legs can carry me.
12 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 3:10 pm
“Yet unfortunately they also fear the wild disinformation broadcast by Fox News and credulously believed by millions of Fox viewers.”
Well, that’s what happens when you build your base on the worst of the fat, drunk and stupid people this country has to offer. So they’ve painted themselves into a corner now? Too bad. Anybody with a teaspoon of brains saw this coming the minute Ronald Reagan was declared the victor in 1980. Don’t act surprised now.
“It’s beyond time for conservatives who know better to join us at NewMajority in emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.”
LOL, just *who* would that be? Michelle Bachmann? Sarah Palin? *Who* in the racist lynch mob listening to the president’s speech Wednesday night do you think can be emancipated, or wants to be? THERE ARE NO CONSERVATIVES WHO KNOW BETTER, SIR. STUPIDITY IS THEIR HALLMARK.
13 WillyP // Sep 11, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Strange that Mr. Frum’s former publication had much more to say about this illustrious man:
“Sunstein’s work represents a return to the governmental theories of absolutism — of power, rather than of right. Welfare rights are incompatible, not only with property rights, but with law and with the very concept of rights. Professor Sunstein, meet Louis XIV.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/books/palmer200503011045.asp
14 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 3:19 pm
That, coming from the intellecdtually dishonest National Review. You are more likely to get an honest evaluation of Cass Susstein from a piece of toilet paper, even a used one-which is more useful than anything the NR is good for.
15 jabbermule // Sep 11, 2009 at 3:39 pm
There they go again: Republicans and conservatives in general are bigots, liars, nutcases, members of a racist lynch mob – that’s the thanks you get, Mr Frum, by trying to cozy up to the left.
It’s getting impossible to maintain a principled argument against big government and socialist policies without being attacked as a racist and a liar.
16 balconesfault // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:03 pm
It’s getting impossible to maintain a principled argument against big government and socialist policies without being attacked as a racist and a liar.
Nope – you just have to maintain a principled (and internally consistent!) argument against big government and socialist policies.
Oh yeah – and avoid using racially inflammatory language, or lies.
17 MFarmer // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Paranoia run riot. If you oppose Sunstein, you hate animals and rationality and you’re leading the Republicans to hell. This is hysterical.
18 Frum takes on Beck // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:43 pm
[...] Frum has been one of the loudest voices of sanity on the right, and he takes on Glenn Beck in his latest column. We conservatives are submitting our movement to some of the most unscrupulous people in American [...]
19 » GOP Cranks Dominate Oppositon to Sunstein And Health Care Debate Liberal Values // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:28 pm
[...] by the wingnuts who have captured control of the conservative movement. Another conservative, David Frum, has written about this today. Frum calls Sunstein the “best friend conservatives are likely [...]
20 Swimming Upstream « Axis of Reason // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:40 pm
[...] is among those on the Right who are increasingly wary of the GOP’s deal with the devil. Today, he highlights how Glenn Beck (who it seems is out for himself and not for the party – suprise!) made a [...]
21 Observer // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Bravo.
22 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:59 pm
“There they go again: Republicans and conservatives in general are bigots, liars, nutcases, members of a racist lynch mob”
Look at the elected officials you *choose* to represent you, and then tell me I am wrong.
“It’s getting impossible to maintain a principled argument against big government and socialist policies without being attacked as a racist and a liar.”
That is because no public conservative even tries to maintain a principled argument. The goons on the right-you know, the ones that represent YOUR interests-don’t even TRY to be clever anymore about the fact that they are stoking resentment and racial hate (see, especially, Glenn Beck and white supremacist Rep. Joe Wilson). It would be funny if it weren’t, as the president noted, so cynical and irresponsible. I personally don’t believe it is possible to consider oneself a conservative without being a racist and a liar. Otherwise, there would be a groundswell of opposition to scum like Beck and Limbaugh, and, with the exception of Frum here and Bruce Bartlett, I DON’T SEE IT. When you *all* are speaking in one voice against the insane paranoia, racism and pathological lies put forth by these snake oil salesmen on YOUR behalf, then we can consider that maybe you are all not liars and racists.
Until then-forget it.
23 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:12 pm
LOL!!!!
Yeah, every cop on the Cape loves gay guys and is in the tank for Obama. OF COOOUUUURRRRSE the administration waved a wand and got Sullivan off witha slap!
What did I just say-insane paranoia, ROFLMAO!!!!
24 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:19 pm
“little-to-no evidentiary support.”
Every time a conservative kisses Rush’s ass I get all the evidence I need.
“Are you planning to just tell everyone off to make yourself feel better?”
Pretty much, yeah. I think you all are bottom feeders myself. The fact that you are reading Frum’s blog makes you a tad more tolerable than the average hannity watcher, but not much.
Do what you are all too cowardly to do-Call out the scum in your midst and stop electing them to positions of power-and I will think better of you, as will 70% of the American populace who now think you are poison. It really isn’t that hard.
25 Chekote // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I am so sick and tired of Dems and their supporters being so outraged at the behavior of some in the GOP. I guess they forget the eight years of blind Bush hatred. Bush is Hitler. And as far as racism, anti-semitism and all around general hate, no one so far has outpaced Rev. Wright.
However, Mr. Frum is making an imporant point. It is time for people in the GOP who have sought leadership positions to lead. Beck is a leader to the extent that others allow him to hug the podium. The problem with the GOP is simple: lack of guts. As soon as they get a few phone calls, they back off and ignore the majority of people who vote Republicans don’t care for Beck, don’t listen to Beck and have no use for Beck. Until we get real leadership, nothing is going to change.
26 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:52 pm
no one so far has outpaced Rev. Wright.
I don’t recall that Rev. Wright has a cable show on a frothing partisan network, or has been elected to any political office, or spends hours given a platform to spread vicious lies and rumors that are swallowed hook line and sinker by a gullible segment of right wing morons who then go running out to teabag. The comparison is laughable at best, ignorant at worst.
27 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:55 pm
“ignore the majority of people who vote Republicans don’t care for Beck, don’t listen to Beck and have no use for Beck.”
But by the same token enable him and his paranoid rants-the Rockefeller Center as a communist plot?-by *not* calling him out. Your silence is complicity-it will not save you.
28 Chekote // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:02 pm
So your point is that no having a cable or radio shows makes Rev. Wright’s view’s acceptable. Racism is wrong, no matter the source or occupation. Anti-semitism is wrong. Hateful rhetoric is wrong. Rev. Wright may not have a cable or radio show. Instead, he had the ear of our current president for 20 years.
29 Chekote // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I mean views acceptable. Sheesh…
30 Chekote // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:05 pm
or spends hours given a platform to spread vicious lies and rumors that are swallowed hook line and sinker by a gullible segment of right wing morons who then go running out to teabag.
No, instead Rev. Wright spent decades telling the AA community that the government invented AIDS to kill them. If you truly care about racism, hatred and the rest you would be equally appalled by Wright. But you are not and you have been exposed for the hypocrite you are.
31 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I did not say that. there are lots of stupid people who say a lot of stupid things on both sides of the aisle. The point is that the left has not allowed Rev. Wright a center stage to spread his message. They have not made him a standard bearer for the party-they have, in fact, rather unceremoniously dumped on him. The right, on the other hand-and *not* just the fringe right, but the mainstream party-has held up Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh as national spokespeople who are spreading the truth as seen by the GOP. They have given legitimacy to the most vitriolic, hate-filled, racist paranoia most of us have heard in a lifetime. That is nothing short of shameful on the part of what can only loosely be termed as GOP leadership, although my guess is that most of them actually agree with their madmen on the airwaves.
32 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:10 pm
“No, instead Rev. Wright spent decades telling the AA community that the government invented AIDS to kill them. If you truly care about racism, hatred and the rest you would be equally appalled by Wright. But you are not and you have been exposed for the hypocrite you are”
Read my post above, idiot.
33 EscapeVelocity // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Breaking: Census Bureau cuts ties to ACORN
34 EscapeVelocity // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Breaking: Pro Abortion Advocate murders Pro Life Demonstrator
35 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:30 pm
“A man carrying grudges against several people in town set off on a shooting spree Friday morning, authorities said, killing an abortion protester outside a school because he didn’t like that the activist carried a sign with graphic images of a fetus in front of students.”
He wasn’t a “pro-abortion advocate”
36 sdspringy // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:32 pm
The Left is just quicker with the overhanded throw under the bus when it comes to rasicst, especially those with ties to the Meshiah.
http://www.nationalreview.com/books/palmer200503011045.asp
This is what makes reporting so difficult in todays age. The ability to find multiple references to individuals or topics. Of course Frumm will not respond to this article or how Sunstein is presented. Can’t treat National Review with the same contempt as Beck.
I love Beck because all the Lefties hate him. Whereas all the Lefties love Frumm, why is that? Possible because David you don’t inspire or motivate. Your articles are no threat.
37 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:40 pm
“I love Beck because all the Lefties hate him.”
Doesn’t matter that he is a liar, or a racist, or an attention whore or only cares about himself! I love him anyway! That shows you what kind of values I have-the truth doesn’t matter, smear campaigns don’t matter! Hell, if he killed somebody I wouldn’t care! Liberals don’t like him!
Jesus. And you all wonder why you are less popular than the bubonic plague these days! ROFLMAO!!!!!
38 sdspringy // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Now, now IDKRN, don’t pucker up so tight. You lefties always so fast with the labels. I am sure you listen to Big Ed S. on the radio, same personnality as Beck.
Both sides have em. Beck just happens to be on a cable network that actually has viewers, unlike MSNBC.
Besides I get a big LOL on your tirade.
39 mimsong // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:57 pm
“that’s why only 33 Republican senators voted “no” on the cloture vote on his nomination” — hysterically funny line! dude, you’ve only got 40, so this means 7 non-loonies. wake me when it’s a bit closer, okay?
btw, where’s your birth certificate? they’ll be asking for it soon, so you’d better be prepared.
40 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Sorry- I only listen to NPR, which, I am sure, is just the same as the Rev. Wright to you. Sometimes ESPN radio. I don’t even have cable, so your MSNBC jabs don’t really mean anything to me.
41 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:00 pm
“btw, where’s your birth certificate? they’ll be asking for it soon, so you’d better be prepared”
If I were Frum, I would watch out if I were in church, too. Probably some copycat will gun him down right in front of the altar…
42 sinz54 // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:09 pm
ldkrn:
I couldn’t care less what you think of me, or any other conservatives.
Unlike you liberals, we’re not so guilt-ridden nor self-conscious as to be constantly looking for approving looks.
If the voters like conservatives, whether liberals like or hate them is totally irrelevant.
Liberals are only 24% of the electorate anyway.
43 sinz54 // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:11 pm
ldkrn:
I’ve got one for you:
I say the moon is made of green cheese.
Now prove me wrong.
Don’t you get it? WE DON’T HAVE TO PROVE OURSELVES TO YOU.
All we have to do is convince the American electorate to vote us back into power.
44 sinz54 // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:16 pm
ldkrn:
Reverend Wright doesn’t need to.
Reverend Wright saw his protege get into into the White House and act on the “frothing” mindset that Reverend Wright instilled into him all those years.
For Reverend Wright, having his ideological puppet as POTUS beats having to go out there and win over the public himself.
45 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:16 pm
“All we have to do is convince the American electorate to vote us back into power.”
LOL, yeah, and so far you are doing a greeeeeaaaaat job on that score! Keep on puttin’ in those Bachmanns and palins and letting Beck speak for you! Let those House Republicans keep up their Animal House act during a presidential address! THAT’LL win ‘em over for sure!
ROFLMAO-AGAIN!!!!!
46 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:18 pm
“Wright saw his protege get into into the White House and act on the “frothing” mindset that Reverend Wright instilled into him all those years”
LOL, yeah, I have seen LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of Black Panther, Black Power stuff coming out of this White House! Yeah, the looney left is CRAZY about this president! He’s gonna dig up Malcolm X and replace Van Jones with him!
Do you have any idea how stupid you are?
47 ldkrn // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:24 pm
LOL, this has been a great run here. As long as people keep thinking like you guys-and ignoring my friend Frum here-the left will hold on to power for the next five generations! First Obama, next Abbey Rockefeller!
LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
48 sinz54 // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:32 pm
ldkrn:
I appreciate your concern, I really do.
But we’ll continue to choose our own representatives, our own strategies, and our own tactics.
If we’re wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
But if we’re right, and we take power again,
then you’re going to find the political climate in America turning very chilly for Reverend Wright, for Daily KOS, for Moveon.org, for the ACLU–and for you.
49 sdspringy // Sep 11, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Which is why Beck is improving the odds of that happening more than Frumm, thanks Sinz54. I know David doesn’t like that but it is the truth.
Beck is going to hold Obama accountable for 31 czars, failed healthcare legislation. Remind everyone that Rangle is a two-faced tax cheat, Reid is dirty in real estate, Dodd has mortgage issues, and Nancy is just plain dumb. Obama has no intention of free and open government and now we learn that Acorn is no longer involved in the census. And my personnal favorite is Obama giving 2 BILLION of our tax money to a Bazilian oil company to drill off shore. Who brought this about, Beck or a Frumm? Who is generating national media stories about corruption and falsehoods in this government, Frumm, CNN, CBS? The answer is a big fat NO.
Frumm draws as many Libs, who won’t vote Rep. anytime soon, as conservative. And when he does appear on a national media outlet is used only to criticize other conservatives. I find more information that causes distrust of Sunstein than confidence. Mainly because Obama doesn’t bring in anyone but socialist into his administration. Sunstein appears no different.
50 anniemargret // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Reverend Wright? Are you kidding? Since when does he influence the Democratic party? Is he on the national airwaves like Beck/Palin/Coulter/Limbaugh? He has already been summarily dismissed. I don’t know a single Democrat who thinks of him at all with any type of reverence or respect, or worry about whether or not he is consequential to any point of discussion that we are having under this President. Healthcare reform anyone?
And if you are going to throw stones…
And where is your outrage, oh GOP, against the pastor (”Rev” Anderson of AZ) who recently expressed ‘hate’ for Obama and prayed for his death, hoping he’d die of brain cancer like Teddy Kennedy? You can bet his “christians’ are registered Republicans. We’ve already heard from other Republican ‘christians’ that he is the ‘anti-Christ.” If you don’t think this display is bigotry on a high order, what is? They’re YOUR people. Is there some kind of hypocrisy going on here?
Where was the GOP’s outrage when McCain courted the religious bigots like Hagee, who denounced the Catholic Church as the “great whore of Babylon” and other assorted bigotry against gays, etc…
Give it up. This whole Wright thing is so overblown and idiotic. You’re all grasping at straws. The GOP has enough bigots and prejudices and hypocrisies of its own, and I would suggest rooting them out before you begin again your flaying of Obama about Rev Wright. jeez…
51 brandon // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I want citizens to elect conservatives and Republicans because we offer better ideas than the liberals or the Democrats for advancing our country. We are not doing that at the present time as we are mainly coming across as the party that is just anti Obama. I hope before 2012 we will get our act together and be able to articulate our vision for the U.S.
But the average voter doesn’t pay as much attention to politics as people who read a site like Newmajority or especially people who take time to post a comment. Their main interest is going to be the answer to the question, “is the country moving in the right direction” especially the economy.
In 2012, if Obama’s policies have failed (which we all know they will) then the country will once again give the Republicans the chance to govern if we present even a halfway decent alternative. The antics of Beck, Palin, Wilson, Bachman or whatever bogeyman the Democrats will try to bring up won’t mean a thing to most voters if the economy is still in the toilet.
Since Obama is incompetent to deal with the nation’s problems, no doubt it will be in the tank still in 3 years.
52 brandon // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Annie, yes these other ministers you reference are kooks, but Obama was a member of a church for 20 years that has a lunatic is a pastor. That didn’t bother you at all?
53 balconesfault // Sep 11, 2009 at 11:23 pm
For the record, I absolutely refuse to participate in this circular pissing match.
Although I will comment on this:
For Reverend Wright, having his ideological puppet as POTUS beats having to go out there and win over the public himself.
Shame shame, Sinz. I know you were provoked, but you’re better than that.
54 agentprovocateur // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:08 am
All we have to do is convince the American electorate to vote us back into power.
And who will be leading that charge? Sarah Palin? John Boehner? Mike Huckabee? Mitch Mcconnell? Also, who will be the cheerleaders for that charge? Glenn Beck? Rush Limbaugh? Sean Hannity? Even with all the president’s problems, your chances aren’t looking that good.
55 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:12 am
Bomb Threat Forces Evacuation of DC TEA Party Planners
September 11, 2009
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/09/bomb-threat-forces-evacuation-of-dc-tea-party-planners.html
56 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:15 am
It must really, really, piss off Leftwingers that they no longer have control of the media.
Give em hell Glenny!
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/11/quote-of-the-day-560/
57 rbottoms // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:09 am
You vaguely remember a number of years ago that it was the Democrats, the liberals who were working hard to get handguns out of the hands of the unbalanced and those intent on harm.
After being punished election after election we finally said keep you damn guns.
I assume you’ll now become a proponent of the revival of the Brady Bill?
Didn’t think so.
58 rbottoms // Sep 12, 2009 at 5:43 am
BTW, thanks to the undercover sting at ACORN. By nuking them more than a year before the 2010 elections we have time to make then a distant memory. As is typical your side overstates the group’s power and we certainly don’t a group this sloppy and stupid working with us on the census.
And before you go there, their role in the census came about long before Barrack Obama set foot in the White House. Hmm, who was in charge for eight years before that????
59 balconesfault // Sep 12, 2009 at 5:59 am
Gawker takes on Beck’s rally.
On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as “great” as Glenn Beck. They just felt like shit. They felt scared and confused and depressed… And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like it was 9/12/01. And eight years later, normal people, with brains and souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.
So thank fucking christ that the Commander in Chief is no longer subjecting the nation to death porn.
No, this year it’s limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into fear.
Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America.
60 balconesfault // Sep 12, 2009 at 6:00 am
Oops – sorry for leaving the profanity in there, unedited. I didn’t notice that until re-read. This site really could use an “edit” button for comments.
61 midcon // Sep 12, 2009 at 9:18 am
If Beck is having a rally in DC on Sunday he will have the company of all those who are there to watch the Nation’s Triathalon. Well, perhaps he can use them to bolster to rally count when it gets reported!
Since I limit my television watching I have to make choices regarding what comedies to watch and Beck has just not been able to acquire a slot in my schedule. Consequentlly, I am forced to think for myself. It’s a lot harder to do that than have someone like Beck do it for me, but it’s the price I pay for not being part of someone’s pack.
I do watch the Dog Whisperer on NatGeo and the similarities between dogs and politics is amazing. Beck and others like him remind me of a pack leader that Cesar Millan is always talking about. Beck is definitely the dominant pack leader and his follows are submissive to the pack leader. Interestingly, his pack seems to consist of mostly males and it is the males that tend to want to dominate, yet it is apparent that Beck and few others have achieved the alpha male (pack leader) status and the rest (their loyal listeners) submissively lower their heads and follow right in line.
I, myself don’t have much of a pack, but what pack I do have, I can honestly say I am the pack leader of it. Regardless of what some folks think about John McCain, he at least is a alpha male and doesn’t lower his head and snap to the will of the talking heads like the rest of the binary right (and binary left for that matter).
62 Chekote // Sep 12, 2009 at 9:27 am
I love Beck because all the Lefties hate him.
This is the same reasoning that explains much of the Palin support. I just don’t “get” it. You are letting your opponents pick your leader, candidate, whatever. It makes no sense.
63 Chekote // Sep 12, 2009 at 9:33 am
This whole Wright thing is so overblown and idiotic.
This is shocking. You come across as a very compassionate, fair person. Very patriotic too. I could never support someone who at the very least didn’t have the judgement, fortitude to walk out of that church many years ago. McCain didn’t sit on Hagee’s church for 20 years. So the comparison is laughable. I guess in your book hanging out with racists, anti-semites and people who damn America is okay. I don’t care for Hagee and any of the other pastors you mention in your post. You know how I feel about the Religious Right. To me this is a question of right and wrong. For you is a question of whether the bigot is a Democrat or a Republican. Very disappointing.
64 johnmarzan // Sep 12, 2009 at 9:46 am
i’m glad that david can tell the difference between glenn beck and bill o’reilly or glenn beck and sean hannity.
65 jabbermule // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:10 am
There you go, folks – when attempting to have a principled argument with the Left, they resort to shrill cries of racism, and that is all they have. They don’t believe in capitalism, free markets, individual liberty, individual responsibility, national defense, free speech or sound economic principles…they have no ideas, no plan, no argument–NOTHING–other than their discredited pseudo-Marxist utopian vision that has been PROVED throughout history to be nothing more than an abysmal failure.
66 Observer // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:25 am
“I guess in your book hanging out with racists, anti-semites and people who damn America is okay.”
Congress is full of members of both parties who still celebrate the Confederacy, which put hundreds of thousands of troops into the field to kill American soldiers for extremely dubious causes. The other day, Pat Buchanan referred to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson – both men who led troops in battle against the United States – as “American heroes.”
I’m quite prepared to see criticism of Wright on race and patriotism, provided it cuts both ways.
67 Chekote // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:17 pm
observer
I think I have been pretty consistent in criticizing both sides.
68 jabbermule // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:19 pm
“Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America”
balconesfault: I didn’t find any of your profanity nearly as offensive as this statement. You’ve made it quite clear that you’re nothing more than a small-minded, knee-jerk, reactionary left-wing nutbag, and everything you post on this site going forward has no credibility whatsoever. Seriously, go crawl back under your leftist rock, and while you’re at it, you might consider putting the bong down for more than 5 minutes at a time.
69 jabbermule // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:22 pm
balconesfault: My apologies – I didn’t read earlier in your post that you were actually quoting someone else…my mistake.
70 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:27 pm
agentprovocateur:
Barack Obama. Of course!
Just like 1980 all over again.
By 1980, the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, had screwed things up so badly that the public was eager to vote him out of office–no matter who his opponent was.
If Obama continues on his current trajectory, he could be beaten in 2012 by just about anybody.
71 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:31 pm
balconesfault:
Gee, whatever happened to those “Dissent is Patriotic” slogans you liberals used to toss around?
Or the way you excused the hard-left for trashing store windows and street-fighting with cops in the “Battle of Seattle” anti-globalization protests?
Now that you Leftists have taken power, you’re just as intolerant of dissent against your policies and leaders as you used to accuse the Right of being.
Stop coddling Barack Obama just because he’s “THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.” Like Garfield, McKinley, FDR, JFK, Reagan and Ford, he’ll just have to take his chances.
72 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:35 pm
balconesfault:
That particular troll has been dispatched successfully.
73 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Chekote:
No.
For the Left, it is a question of whether the bigot is black or white.
Black bigots, whether named Robert Mugabe or Al Sharpton or Reverend Wright, get a free pass from the guilt-ridden Left because, after all, these black bigots are BLACK, and anything they do is simply provoked by the “white racism” of the West. Tom Wolfe, in his famous book “Radical Chic,” illustrated how the most virulently anti-semitic and anti-white black militants were courted and invited to cocktail parties by the wealthy white liberal socialites of the Upper East Side in New York City. There, they were treated as celebrities and folk heroes.
It’s Left upside-down racialism, in which blacks (and Palestinians) are held to be the salt of the earth and whites (and Jews) are held to be all sinners on the inside.
74 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Its called Anti Westernism, 3 particularly virulent forms of it are Anti Americanism, Bigotry against Southerners, and now Anti Semitism and Anti Israel sentiment….vis a vis the Arabs and Palestinians.
There hearts have been poisoned by racism, guilt, and incorrect thoughts. They must repent!
75 balconesfault // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:17 pm
balconesfault: My apologies – I didn’t read earlier in your post that you were actually quoting someone else…my mistake.
No apology needed. I do feel that there are those in our society who feel that the problem with Americans is that we don’t feel enough fear – and it’s their job to make sure that we do feel it.
Bin Laden didn’t strike on 9/11 just to kill people – because he could never kill enough Americans to take away our freedoms. He struck because killing people would create fear – and that via fear we ourselves would surrender our freedoms.
Glen Beck’s 9/12 campaign is purely about fear.
76 balconesfault // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:34 pm
sinz: “Or the way you excused the hard-left for trashing store windows and street-fighting with cops in the “Battle of Seattle” anti-globalization protests?”
I make no such excuses. Such tactics are counterproductive politically, and destruction of others property is simply wrong.
77 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Glen Beck’s, and other talkers as well as Fox News, and the Conservative Blogosphere is about holding government and its officials acountable, the majority of the MSM has abdicated there responsibility, and have become apologizers, look the other wayers, and outright cheerleaders for President Obama, and the Democrats.
Now participating in democracy and free speech is a fearmongering campaign.
Orwell was a visionary.
78 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:54 pm
He struck because killing people would create fear – and that via fear we ourselves would surrender our freedoms. — balconesfault
While I dont disagree about your first sentence (though I believe the attack was more Muslim oriented, designed to reduce fear of an invulnerable Great Satan and West by striking a blow at the heart of the Western Satan). It was also designed to get a response from the US and the West that would rally Muslims together against the West…and towards the Islamic Caliphate.
Its is highly unlikely that Osama bin Laden was at all concerned about our surrendering freedoms.
Please dont put fantastical motives onto Osama bin Laden.
The fact of the matter is that Israel surrenders freedoms in order to stop would be mass murderers from killing them and their children. Its not the goal of the would be mass murderers to achieve the outcome of the institution of security measures designed to effectively stop them, which they do.
Is it unfortunate that people hate us virulently and wish to kill us and terrorize us? It certainly is. However, reality is what it is….all you have to do is embrace it.
If the Israelis didnt have a wall, and checkpoints, and all the security measures they take, they would have daily or weekly mass murder in the streets of Israel. Not taking the security measures to prevent that is NOT moral and courageous. Its just plain stupid.
79 samharmon // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:00 pm
As a left-leaning Democrat, I cannot help but feel encouraged by the attacks on Mr. Frum’s offensive against Mr. Beck and his ilk. While I do find the level of vitriol among those opposed to the current administration downright frightening at times, watching the factions on the right eat themselves alive has become one of my favorite spectator sports.
80 el gato libre // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:05 pm
escapevelocity
Do you realize that Orwell was a socialist? A self-professed socialist? A man who justified flipping his opinon about World War II by saying that this war was necessary so that socialism could be implemented?
It’s always funny to me when far right wingers quote Orwell in one breath, and then condemn socialism and socialists as evil in the next.
81 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Beck’s mob marshalled by Dick Army of FreedomWorks puts half a million to a million in the streets of Washington.
Frum frowns.
82 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Your ruminations on Orwell, show the level of understanding that most Leftwingers possess, and that which Orwell growing older came to recognize himself, as he turned against the Left.
Orwell, was the first modern Neo Conservative.
83 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Your ruminations on Orwell, show the level of understanding that most Leftwingers possess, and that which Orwell growing older came to recognize himself, as he turned against the Left.
Orwell, was the first modern Neo Conservative.
84 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Leftwing terrorist bomb threats against the Tea Party, may have reduced numbers somewhat, but they still marshalled nearly a million people.
Dont let the Leftwing terrorists win! Stand up for free speech, democracy, and the right to petition government for redress of grievances!
85 el gato libre // Sep 12, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Hey escape…
Those comments about Orwell aren’t my “ruminations”. They’re just statements of facts. Orwell was a self-professed socialist, and he supported WWII as an enabling agent for moving towards socialism. These are facts.
Here’s some ruminations. Sure, Orwell modified his views all the time on any number of subjects, but to call him “the first modern Neo Conservative” seems to be a bit of a stretch. 1984 and Animal Farm were not broadsides against leftism–he was critiquing the Soviet system, and the cover up and rationalization of it’s abuses by contemporary western leftists. He still believed in the socialist ideal and considered himself a socialist until he died. But then, you’d have to read more Orwell than 1984 and Animal Farm to know this.
86 Understanding, Accepting, and Finally Celebrating The Conservative Chessboard « NewsReal Blog // Sep 12, 2009 at 3:42 pm
[...] a piece titled “GOP Surrenders to Beck’s Mob Rule” at New Majority, Frum took issue with Beck’s characterization of Cass Sunstein, the recently [...]
87 The Circular Firing Squad Hits Glenn Beck « NewsReal Blog // Sep 12, 2009 at 3:54 pm
[...] having made a bad name for himself with a crusade against Rush Limbaugh in the leftwing press, has now taken out after Glenn Beck in a column titled “GOP Surrenders to Beck’s Mob Rule.” (Frum is an armchair [...]
88 randyhough // Sep 12, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Having read some of Sunstein’s work, I believe Frum is right about him. But factual correction: not two, but six Democrats voted against confirmation (Begich, Lincoln, Nelson, Pryor, Sanders, and Webb). I’m not much of a Beck fan, and to those who say we should love him simply because the left hates him, I point out that some of us are old enough to have gone down that road with Nixon. However, Beck does deserve great credit for the ACORN expose’.
89 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:22 pm
The fact of the matter, is that Orwell, was pro War and deeply critical of the anti War Stalinist apologist Left….which has been even more mainstreamed today. He was against anti Semitism which is growing by leaps and bounds on the Left.
He was also anti imperialist, and that would put him right in line with Burke.
Furthermore, he was pro human rights and freedom. He was more of a libertarian anarchist than a socialist, and would be opposed to the mainstream grow government till its a totalitarian state Left of today.
All of the corrections of colonial imperialism and segregation in the West that have occurred. Spreading equality before the law, etc.
He would support the efforts to keep girls in school in Afghanistan.
While its true that predicting his exact positions today has its limitations…..I think it pretty safe to assume that if not exactly a Neo Con, then a Decent Center Leftist of the Euston Manifesto type is almost assured, even dingleberrys like Berman and Waltzer are that. My guess is that he would be more like Nick Cohen, Ron Radosh, and perhaps even David Horowitz.
90 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:25 pm
1984 and Animal Farm are the least interesting of Orwells work, IMO…..while being interesting themselves…..as Science Fiction type explorations of man’s follies.
91 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:36 pm
As always, its easier to form a coalition of people that are against the alternative status quo, than to to hold together a coalition when in power.
Obama and the Dems will have all these Christian Social Con haters voting in droves for Palin or whoever emerges as GOP candidate, just to get rid of Obama.
Wilson campaign: Fundraising breaks $1 million, passes Miller
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Wilson_campaign_Fundraising_breaks_1_million_passes_Miller.html
Every dollar given to Miller is a wasted dollar, that could have been spent elsewhere to defend vulnerable Blue Dog seats.
What a hoot!
92 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Tea partiers chant “Glenn Beck” during CNN live shot
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/12/video-tea-partiers-chant-glenn-beck-during-cnn-live-shot/
93 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:46 pm
You can feel the energy in the air, the positive vibes, the solidarity of the people.
No amount of bomb threats, snitch lines at the White House, Union Thuggery, Propaganda from the National Endowment for the Arts, can silence the American People!
94 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 4:59 pm
All this energy should get the young people motivated. They like direct political ACTION.
Here is what the Left is giving us this Fall….to really drive people away from the Democrats.
Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story
and for the double feature…Oliver Stone’s pro Chavez Show, it seems his plan to glorify Iran and Ahmadenijad fell through because of “domestic disturbances,” where liberal pro democracy forces were rounded up and tortured on the order’s of the regimes religious oligarchy. Tough to sell those IslamoFascists as great humanitarians sticking it to the capitalist imperialist running dogs, heh? Never fear their is always Chavez, Castro, and Ortega to fall back on.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ChavezStone-600×337.jpg
95 el gato libre // Sep 12, 2009 at 5:00 pm
escape…
Please explain how anti-semitism is “growing by leaps and bounds on the Left.” Also, you wrote that Orwell “would support the efforts to keep girls in school in Afghanistan.” I think he probably would, too. I don’t know how that makes him a neo-con. Maybe I missed the part about lefties who were against girls in school in Afhganistan, but I figured that most on the left would want them there.
96 balconesfault // Sep 12, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Please explain how anti-semitism is “growing by leaps and bounds on the Left
It’s a common meme among some on the right that not supporting Israeli expansion in the occupied territories means anti-semitism.
This is pretty silly, since a significant portion of the Jewish population here and in Israel are against expanding settlements, and the vast majority of the Jewish population in the US votes Democratic.
97 brandon // Sep 12, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Here’s a good article on the strangeness of American Jews continuing to support the Democratic Party in such huge numbers:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574402591116901498.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
98 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Lets take the Afghan girls in school idea first. To oppose the NATO and international efforts in Afghanistan, calling for troop withdrawals before the Afghan Central government can fight off the Taliban by itself, and some political reconciliations with the less ideological members of the Taliban coalition…..is to de facto be opposed to girls going to school, and supporting the Taliban who throws acid in girls faces and bombs girls schools repeately. This argument was made against the pacifist anti War left during WW2, by Orwell.
Google “orwell against the anti war left” and the 3 top articles will fill you in.
Now as regards to anti semitism growing on the Left, I suggest you head on over to Harry’s Place, or pick up Nick Cohen’s excellent book….”What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way” which covers more ground than just anti Semitism.
The Euston Manifesto covers this area, in its fight for a “Decent Left.”
Google “anti semitism on the left” a page full of discussion…..also google “Decent Left” and “Indecent Left”
Here is Waltzer’s article from 2002…
Can There Be a Decent Left?
By Michael Walzer, co-editor Dissent Magazine
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Politics/Waltzer.htm
99 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Balconesfault’s straw man is of course false.
The anti semitism comes in many forms, and is often attempted to be camoflaged as anti Zionism…..its the adoption of classic anti semitic canards, adoption of anti semitic formulations from Palestinian and Arab and Muslim sources. Addtionally it is the support of outright anti Semites of the most vile sort against Israel and the Jews of Israel. Leftwing academics in the UK linking and citing David Duke is an example of the mild variety, the people that they support with Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim backrounds make David Duke look positively Enlightened and Liberal, by contrast.
Its not a secret.
Brandon, that is a good article, Podhoretz just wrote a book on the subject. There is also a good symposium on “Why are Jews liberal?” at Commentary magazine. Wolpe, Medved, and Jacoby are standouts IMO.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-are-jews-liberal–15223
100 el gato libre // Sep 12, 2009 at 6:13 pm
balconesfault – I know about the Israel meme. Just wanted to see what escape would come up with.
escapevelocity – You lost me at “de facto.” Agitating for a pullout from Afghanistan may be wrong-headed, but it doesn’t make you anti-girls-in-schools. Was Bush against Afghan schoolgirls because he under-funded and neglected the Afghan war for years? By your logic, yes.
I’ve read gobs of Orwell, and am aware of his anti-pacifism and his criticisms of the left. Still doesn’t come close to making him a neo-con. Face it, he was a socialist and died a socialist. You can’t call him a neo-con without throwing that detail down the memory hole, and then selectively re-arranging the facts you want–and tossing the ones you don’t– into some figure that reflects your personal ideology.
101 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Read Orwell, where he clearly states that being anti War and being pacifist makes you de facto Pro Nazi.
Orwell’s configuration, not mine.
You can dance around and wave your hands. But the fact of the matter many Decent Leftists, which are the minority on the Left are called NeoCons by the majority on the Left.
Also if you read these authors such as Horowitz and Rodash, about their journey’s away from the Left…you will find that Orwell’s writings reveal a similar journey.
After the death of European Imperialism and the liberation of women, and the full institution of human and civil rights for minorities, I think it safe to say where Orwell would stand. Against totalitarians and pro liberty, human rights, and freedom…..with the Welfare State Lite West, not spending every waking hour belly aching about how terrible the West is and its gross human rights violations….where the Western Left is.
Its not my personal ideology, that is driving my analysis, but a strong grasp of reality, history, and applied reason.
But you are free to cling to the illusions of the Left. You are hardly the first.
102 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 7:10 pm
As an aside, David Frum’s advertisement for an intern is interesting.
What are you looking for in an intern David?
Hot young female to fetch coffee?
LOL!
http://www.newmajority.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/intern_ad.jpg
103 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Positively Clintonian!
104 balconesfault // Sep 12, 2009 at 7:57 pm
brandon and escape both cite the following drivel from Podhoretz :
The upshot is that in virtually every instance of a clash between Jewish law and contemporary liberalism, it is the liberal creed that prevails for most American Jews. Which is to say that for them, liberalism has become more than a political outlook. It has for all practical purposes superseded Judaism and become a religion in its own right. And to the dogmas and commandments of this religion they give the kind of steadfast devotion their forefathers gave to the religion of the Hebrew Bible.
Great. Just like so many on the Religious Right damn their fellow Christians as “not being Christian enough” … Podhoretz is saying his fellow Jews who are liberal have really abandoned their religion.
Thank Jefferson for separation of church and state, or these kind of rantings would be even more dangerous than they already are.
Read Orwell, where he clearly states that being anti War and being pacifist makes you de facto Pro Nazi.
No … his exact quote is:
Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other.
Now, reading for context, one would realize that he’s speaking of a specific situation … where England was facing an expansionist, militaristic, Fascist threat in Nazi Germany.
Citing that as a blanket proclamation by Orwell that pacifism is “de facto Pro Nazi” in all situations is one of the worst arguments I’ve ever seen made on the internet. It is either so patently dishonest or stupid (take your choice) that it’s clear there is no point in engaging the poster again until he publicly recognizes his error.
105 anniemargret // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:04 pm
To both Chekote (#67) and Brandon (#56): You ask why I am not aghast about Wright and Obama. Because I don’t think it is an issue about Obama’s character. Yes, you heard correctly.
Also, I must apologize for my harsh response, but I am at the saturation point. I guess everyone on this thread is, reading the back and forth attacks from all sides of the equation. If you both dislike, or even hate, Obama because of his sitting in a church with a flamboyant and radical pastor, then so be it. It is your perogative, and I’m sure nothing on God’s green earth will change your mind about that, no matter what Obama does or doesn’t do.
For my own personal viewpoint, I can say I am disapppointed that Obama sat in that church, but I am positive in my heart, mind and soul that President Barack Obama is a decent man, with integrity and character. I don’t for a nanosecond believe that Wright = Obama. Which is what the Republicans believe, or want to believe.
If I thought for one moment that Obama was a radical I would not have voted for him. I also believe that if the standard is going to be guilt by association, then line up ‘them politicians! There is going to be a raft of them.
My point about McCain was just that. He associated with Hagee because he needed the votes. I don’t for one moment believe that McCain thinks what Hagee thinks or believes.
Is it right? Probably not, but we live in the real world.
I believe I will judge a person by what they say, do and think…and nothing I have seen or heard from Obama has given me pause to think that he is not a good family man, a wonderful husband and father, a hard-working man who had to overcome enormous hurdles – with a white mother and black father, with a father who abandoned him, struggling with poverty as a child of a single parent, with getting a good education and rising to the top, and being able to become the first black president of the U.S.
I do not think he is a ‘racist’ (Beck!), or an anti-Semite, or anti-American, or any of the other smears he has been called. Not for a New York minute.
I am proud of him, and proud for him. That pretty much sums it up for me.
106 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:16 pm
You could have been anti war in Afghanistan, and still be pro girls going to school there. However from the standpoint of where we are right now, if you are for immediate withdrawal of all Western forces out of Afghanistan, you are objectively, Pro Taliban, and therefore against girls going to school.
This is Orwells formulation, and I think its solid.
Your gripe is with Orwell, not me.
107 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:19 pm
And PS – Orwells writings on that subject are not limited to one sentence….as youve cited there….it is very well fleshed out in a myriad of writings, correspondence, and articles.
108 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Wright is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, with regards to his assoications with radicals, from Alinsky Community Organization, ACORN, Ayers, Van Jones, Khalidi, his typical white person Grandmother…
But believe in your heart, believe the illusions of your desires, project yourself onto Obama…he completes you.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-28-2008/barack-obama–he-completes-us
109 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:29 pm
escapevelocity:
That was, in fact, the position of the feminist Left prior to 9-11. To their credit, prior to 9-11, they spoke out against the legalized systematic abuse of women taking place in Afghanistan under the Taliban. This was at a time when the U.S. government refused to take such a stand, either under the Clinton or Bush Administrations. (Their main concern was illicit drugs from Afghanistan, not the women there.)
110 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:31 pm
escapevelocity:
I am not for “immediate” withdrawal.
But I don’t see just what we are winning there. The Kabul government has allowed abuse of women to resume. It’s not a Taliban thing, it’s a tribal/cultural thing. Men there have been beating women for 2,000 years.
The chance that we can remake Afghan culture along the lines of Thomas Jefferson is nil.
111 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Three stories bubbled up in the last week, although if you read the New York Times and the administration’s other airbrushers you’ll be blissfully unaware of them; the resignation of Van Jones — former (?) Communist and current 9/11 “truther” — from his post as Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar”; the “re-assignment” of Yosi Sergant at the National Endowment for the Arts after he was found to be urging government-funded arts groups to produce “art” in support of Obama policy positions; and, finally, the extraordinary undercover tape from Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website in which officials from ACORN (the Obama chums who’ll be “helping” with the next census) offer advice on how pimps can get government housing loans for brothels employing underage girls from El Salvador.
What do all these Obama associates have in common? I mean, aside from the fact that Glenn Beck played a key role in exposing them. We are assured by the airbrushing media and “moderate” conservatives that Beck is crazy, a frothing spokesnut for the lunatic fringe. By contrast, Van Jones, Yosi Sergant, and ACORN are all members of the lunatic mainstream, embedded philosophically and actually in the heart of Obamaland.
Mark Steyn
112 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Regarding George Orwell:
There was a split among the Left after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact–and which intensified after some of the horrors of Stalinism leaked out, some of them admitted by Khrushchev. In America, you had the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), which got its marching orders from Stalin; and the rival Socialist Labor Party, just as Marxist but which denounced Stalin and the SWP for having “betrayed” the 1917 Revolution. (As a young child growing up in New York City, I saw both of them on the ballot in local elections.)
In Orwell’s “1984,” the leader of the socialist opposition to Big Brother, Emmanuel Goldstein, is a surrogate for Leon Trotsky, who had split from Stalin and continued to denounce Stalinism from other countries–till Stalin’s agents had him assassinated there.
Orwell was not a Marxist. But he was a thorough socialist. Back then, it seemed possible to be a full-blown socialist (demanding government control of production and distribution), while opposing the horrors of Stalinism. The defeat of socialism in free and fair elections in the Eastern European countries in the 1980s and 1990s, was a severe blow to this argument. As a result, most avowedly “socialist” democracies today have working, often vibrant, private sectors (though their governments run cradle-to-grave welfare states). Even Sweden.
113 anniemargret // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Some of the ‘teabaggers’ signs – see them at andrewsullivan.com…. are appalling. No other word for it.
David Frum: “Beck’s Mob Rule” – indeed.
114 Within Reason - The new anti-political correctness // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:59 pm
[...] at A Ku Indeed, Chris wrote a post about David Frum’s piece on the need to put some distance between Glenn Beck and the GOP. While Frum’s piece is [...]
115 rbottoms // Sep 12, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Of course you know, this means war.
The only that will be buried in 2010 and 2012 is the last vestige of a sane Republican party.
116 agentprovocateur // Sep 12, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Barack Obama. Of course!
Just like 1980 all over again.
By 1980, the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, had screwed things up so badly that the public was eager to vote him out of office–no matter who his opponent was.
If Obama continues on his current trajectory, he could be beaten in 2012 by just about anybody.
Considering the dismal state of conservatism and the GOP these days, you obviously need to seek solace wherever you can, even if it is indulging in delusions. Who am I to disabuse you of such fantasies?
Stop coddling Barack Obama just because he’s “THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.” Like Garfield, McKinley, FDR, JFK, Reagan and Ford, he’ll just have to take his chances.
Assassination/assassination attempt predictions, eh? Or are you just fantasizing?
Orwell, was the first modern Neo Conservative.
Hahaha. Yes, and Joseph Stalin was the Tooth Fairy. By the way, if the Left is supposedly so full of anti-Semitism, why are so many Jewish people liberal and why do they support the Democratic Party? Are they all delusional or just filled with self-hatred?
117 Fras // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:23 pm
“Those shrewd conservatives assumed Beck was working for them. Big mistake. Beck is working for himself – and he chooses his targets according to his own scheme of priorities.”
Gee David, what you accuse Beck off, could be attributed to you as well. Attacking the credibility of conservatives who do not share your moderate views appears to be a priority for you. You are attempting to obtain the approval of conservative moderates, independents and centrists democrats by lambasting them as dishonest rightwing loons. Your “Scheme of priorities”, set yourself up as the voice of reason in the conservative movement. To do this you have to discredit conservatives who already have the ear of the people whom you desperately seek to join your cause. I see a pattern here David… First it was Palin, then Limbaugh, Levin, Fox news, now Beck. Who’s next? Malkin, Coulter, Kristol. I don’t know David; I think I may be right.
118 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:30 pm
The chance that we can remake Afghan culture along the lines of Thomas Jefferson is nil. — sinz
Yes, but we may get a Malaysian or Indonesian Democracy, which is better than the Taliban….and allows for change from within the system, by progressive forces.
I agree that Islam is a huge problem. Id take Islam-less Afghani tribesmen any day and transform them into something respectable rather quickly.
119 rbottoms // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:35 pm
What the entertainers surrounding the party of perpetual outrage figured out is that they could make a mint harping on all the “wrongs” visited upon the people who, despite owning everything for 400 years, were now being forced to let the rest of the citizens (females and those of darker hues) to earn a living in the same companies, attend the same schools and vote in the same elections.
They are played for suckers, pressed to buy up gold coins, vending machine franchises, herbal enhancers, and every other scam you can think of that can be sold on radio to keep their screaming idols rich, in exchange for hearing a soothing voice tell them the problem isn’t anything they’ve done.
Time to buy ten more guns and bury them before the gun grabbers come, it’s not like Colt would play on a people’s fears to boost their bottom line.
It’s those eastern elites, thinking they’re so much smarter than everybody, smarter than Sarah or Joe, why either one of them would be a damn sight better at running things. It’s that commie ACLU gumming up the works with constitutional protection this and Miranda that.
Obama couldn’t have been elected. It’s got to be a trick, a conspiracy and ol’ Glenn will fix their wagon.
120 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:46 pm
By the way, if the Left is supposedly so full of anti-Semitism, why are so many Jewish people liberal and why do they support the Democratic Party? Are they all delusional or just filled with self-hatred? —agent
Good answers were already given in the discourse, above.
The presence of the Jews on the American Left and within the Democrat Party tones down the rhetoric in the US, but its still visible, African Americans are famous for their Anti Semitism, for example. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: The Israel Lobby was well recieved by the American Left. Look to the Western Left in Europe and you shall seek easily what you think is so fantastical.
Here is another little gem for you, J Street, look them up. Remember they couldnt abide Palin speaking at the Iran Rally, but embraced Ahmadenijad speaking at Columbia University. These J Streeters are quite the spectacle.
Reality isnt hard to grasp, you just have to want to embrace it.
121 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:55 pm
rbottoms screed reveals the ugliness in his own heart, that he is projecting onto others. Look in the mirror rbottoms, and you will see the embittered resentful fellow is you. The one obsessed with skin color and privelege and racist preferences are not Conservatives or Republicans…they are opposed to laws which are seperate and unequal which upholds the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
122 rbottoms // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I couldn’t be more pleased that ACORN has been canned from the census, work they managed to finagle under George Bush I should remind everyone.
We have hour bad actors too. Anyone with a hand in the till or too far out in the ether needs to be reined in or replaced.
With ACORN gone a full fifteen months before the 2010 elections they will be a distant memory to everyone except the right who will go on and on about them as if the ran the Federal Election Commission or something.
Now if Robert Byrd would just retire. He’s reformed and repented long ago, but he’s 90 something and it’s time for fresh blood. With him gone and one or two more Supreme Court appointments and we’ll have a fine stamp on the judiciary and a tighter lock on the Senate.
The best thing about all this happening so early in Obama’s administration there’s more than 12 months for these frustrated kooks to continue to simmer in their own juices. By next year this time their frustration will be closer to politically stroking out.
And speaking of 2010, what genius decided that leading the hoping for the demise of GM and Chrysler was a winning political move for the GOP? Since every single one of their workers and a whole lot their suppliers owe their continued existence to Obama I see lots of phone bank help there for the asking.
123 Chekote // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:39 pm
It’s Left upside-down racialism, in which blacks (and Palestinians) are held to be the salt of the earth and whites (and Jews) are held to be all sinners on the inside.
Very sad. Racism is wrong and we cannot make exceptions for any group. That’s why we can’t get past the issue of race in this country. If the n-word is wrong (IT IS), then it should be wrong for everyone. As long as we have different standards and expectations depending on the person’s race, background, whatever, we will never get to a post-racial America.
124 anniemargret // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Racism is wrong. Culturalism is wrong. Hate rhetoric is wrong. No matter where it derives from or emanates from. This present ‘war’ between the American people is wrong.
I don’t know about anyone else here, but I’m praying for America to find its soul again.
125 Chekote // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Because I don’t think it is an issue about Obama’s character.
So if I hung around a white supremacist group for 20 years, you would not consider that a reflection of my character? I would. As a matter of fact, there is a Women’s GOP Club here in Dallas that holds functions in exclusionary country clubs. A group of us are raising hell with the Chairman of the Dallas Country GOP. On Friday, I got annoyed during the question and answer session with Senator Hutchinson that the president of our local RJC club kept picking men to ask question. After the sixth men selected, I said with raised voice “Can women ask questions?” The next question was from a woman. Sex, race, ethnic discrimination is something I have little patience for. That’s just me. I am not perfect but I try to do my best. I just find ironic that some on the Left are trying to impune every person at the rally as racist just because a few carried some unacceptable signs. Yet have no problem giving Obama a pass for his racist associations. Go figure.
126 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:56 pm
rbottoms, thanks for the reminder that Obama is buying the votes of GM employees with his illegal confiscation of private property and redistribution to the government and the UAW.
The Leftist dependency vote. Its clear that many many people will not buy cars from GM due to what happened. And so GM will continue to go down the toilet and become and anchor around Obama’s neck, which will be a hot issue for the 2010 elections. The criminal taking of GM that is by the Obama Administration and the UAW, and the continued flushing of taxpayers monies to provide high wages for the UAW and GM employees who make products that dont sell.
What next? Protectionist laws that disadvantage Ford and other manufacturers and dealers in teh US and abroad? GM undercutting everyone with government subsidized cars, killing off the private sector, just like the Public Option in the Health Care debate.
We’ve only just begun to live,
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we’re on our way.
And yes, We’ve just begun.
Before the rising sun we fly,
So many roads to choose
We start our walking and learn to run.
And yes, We’ve just begun.
Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.
And when the evening comes we smile,
So much of life ahead
We’ll find a place where there’s room to grow,
And yes, We’ve just begun.
127 EscapeVelocity // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:59 pm
I heard AndrewSullivan got some big wigs in the Justice Department to step in and correct a little daliance.
Keep up the good work Andy!
128 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:01 am
I did not vote for Obama. But I thought his election meant that we had made progress on race in this country. That made me feel good. But nothing has changed. His supporters labeling every criticism as racism is very destructive. The double standards as I mentioned in my previous posts. Some of Obama’s opponents exploiting the worst instincts and prejudices. Very depressing.
129 anniemargret // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:06 am
What exactly do you want to do about this ‘pass’ that you feel Americans are giving Obama? You want more hate? You want more accusatory hateful rhetoric, but now from Democrats?. The airwaves are filled with it. Enough.
I never heard a racist word out of Obama’s mouth.
He is the duly elected President of the U.S.
It is not for me to persuade you to face forward. This country has major problems and the President is addressing them. Either you step up to the plate and support his efforts, or you can work within your party to win the election in 2012.
130 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:10 am
I loved this comment at ThinkProgress…
“I have said many times that it was an incredible mistake to have brought the confederate states back into the Union after the Civil War. Congress should have expelled the confederate states. We would be outsourcing our labor to them today making it easier for transport of goods and cheap labor. Toyota and Nissan already take advantage of confederate labor. It might even still work today. We’ll take the reformed healthcare, banks/wealth most of the natural resources and let the confederate wanna be’s have shrimp, coal, tobacco, poor education, substandard healthcare, high infant mortality and white inbreed mentality. ”
Cant you feel the love!
131 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:15 am
Annie
I meant that Obama’s associations with racists, anti-semites were dismissed as irrelevant. That’s what I meant by a “pass”. And I heard plenty of hateful rhetoric from the Dems during the Bush years. So no thanks. We need less hate all around.
How is Obama addressing the problems? He has been out there giving speeches when he doesn’t even have a bill. There are about five HC bills floating in Congress. So which bill is Obama promoting during his townhall meetings, speeches, interviews. It is really confusing and amateurish. Also, I wish he would stop talking about the idiotic death panels. All he has done is raise the profile of Palin and dimished himself in the process.
132 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:15 am
I second Chekote’s sentiments in post 132.
133 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:19 am
Also, I wish he would stop talking about the idiotic death panels. All he has done is raise the profile of Palin and dimished himself in the process. — Chekote
Bingo!
No one is against Health Care Reform….however Health Care Reform as a cover for Nationalizing the Health Insurance Industry and thus control of 20 percent of the US economy from the centralized commanding heights…yes they are opposed to that.
Illegal Immigrants being granted free Health Care via that Single Payer, yes, opposed to that.
Address the fuckin issues, and quit talking out both sides of your mouth with regards to Single Payer, Public Option, and Nationalization. When you speaketh with a forked tongue, you dont gain respect and support, you lose trust, credibility and support.
134 el gato libre // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:32 am
escapevelocity sez:
“When you speaketh with a forked tongue, you dont gain respect and support, you lose trust, credibility and support.”
I agree. Now try applying this logic to yourself.
135 el gato libre // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:47 am
I like escapevelocity’s admonition about forked tongues so much that I thought I’d expand upon it:
“When you speaketh with a forked tongue, and sitteth at your computer all day (and night) spamming threads on newmajority with simple-minded rants about straw-man leftists, you dont gain respect and support, you lose trust, credibility and support. In fact, you may convinceth some people that you are mentally unstable.”
136 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:10 am
My word smithing has been admired several times on this site.
Ive pressure washed the house, watched a football game SC vs Geogia, and entertained myself on the internet today, gathering news and information, supporting the Million plus Tea Party March on Washington, having intellectual discussions about Orwell with generally polite and well informed political junkies, and generally countering garbage from Leftwingers and racists, so that their lies and falsehoods dont dominate the internet…fighting the good fight for liberty and America.
Found out the Senate is now putting enforcement and verification language in the bill with regards to illegal immigrants, essentially Obama admitting that Wilson was right to call him a liar….the Congress made him a liar….but he should have known better. I bet he chewed some people out, good.
Pretty good day.
Bottoms up!
137 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:40 am
PJ takes on The Next Right, Frum’s purge promoting partners.
———
The Urge to Purge Solves Nothing
Conservatives don’t win support by condemning folks seen as “fringe” elements.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-urge-to-purge-solves-nothing/
138 agentprovocateur // Sep 13, 2009 at 2:03 am
Cant you feel the love!
That’s no worse than screeds you would see on conservative blogs trashing places like New York or California or Chicago. Your selective concern is touching. El-gato-libre has your number. Your need to explain yourself only proves the point.
139 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 2:29 am
Oh please.
You think I stay awake night because I can’t tell a joke in Yiddish because it has some slang word in it only Jews can use among themselves.
White people can’t use the N-word.
Feel free to try, but to paraphrase Tarantino, your nigger privileges have been revoked. And that’s the exception that makes the rule, Quentin Tarantino can use the word, Trent Lott can’t, cry me a river.
It’s meaning and intent. Some black folks have sworn off the word, I mostly have except with my best friend of forty years ’cause he’s my homeboy.
And you can’t use boy either.
Better not call a spade a spade as well.
“There comes a time when all men must… Oh you get the point”
~ The Beast, X3
140 brandon // Sep 13, 2009 at 4:11 am
Annie, I do not believe Obama is a racist nor do I believe he agreed with the nonsense that came out of Rev. Wright’s church.
What I do believe is that Obama attended that church for 20 years for political reasons and because it gave him a certain amount of “street cred” in the South Side of Chicago. That doesn’t make him a radical, just makes him a standard politician which many of his followers refuse to accept.
What does trouble me about his membership in that church is how the MSM gave him a pass on the subject. He should have been raked over the coals for it. You know if John McCain had attended a church for 20 years where the pastor routinely preached hated against other races or preached that AIDS came from the government, his campaign would have ended and he would not have been the nominee. There would have even been calls for him to resign from the Senate.
The lack of “vetting” from the MSM of Obama was appalling.
141 anniemargret // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:03 am
brandon: You hit the nail on the head. Obama sat in that church because it was not only politically expedient to do so, as a young lawyer and community activist, it was the natural thing to do in that corner of the earth. I don’t have a problem with this, Brandon. The question is whether Obama = Wright and I say – No. And 64,840 million Americans agreed with me on this issue.
I don’t know all of what Wright preached. My suspicion is that he probably preached some very good things too. Did anyone check on that? Or perhaps Obama was able to sift through and get the wheat from the chaff. Millions of Catholics sat through sermons at times by priests who were pedophiles. Some knew or suspected they knew, and preferred ‘not to know’ because it was too troubling. That is human nature to do that. People don’t always make the best decisions for themselves at all times.
We are all on an evolutionary path. We are hopefully go forward on the path. We hopefully take the road less traveled and learn from past mistakes. Obama and Bush both made mistakes in their younger and pre-political lives, but we can assess them in the light of those mistakes, and still think they are decent people who have the best interests of our nation at heart.
As much as I disliked Bush’s policies, I don’t think he was a bad man. And I think Obama is trying to do his best for our country. If you don’t believe that, then it is not me who can convince you of it.
As far as the media and ‘vetting’ – c’mon…don’t get simple here. You know and I know and millions know that the whole Wright thing was exhaustively researched and debated hotly on national TV, radio and in the airwaves for months and months prior to the election, ad nauseum.
Again, do you think Obama thinks and acts like Wright? If so, and if you think through osmosis he thinks and acts like a ‘radical’ then by all means I would understand your feeling. I don’t, and neither do those other millions of Americans. I think we can distinguish between the two.
And as far as ‘vetting’ goes… the MSM went after Bush’s alleged past cocaine use and AWOL status. Frankly, I thought the whole thing was pretty stupid as I could care less what a politician did or didn’t do when they were 20 years old. People change and evolve. And McCain’s camp didn’t ‘vet’ Palin, or we wouldn’t be still talking about her now.
As I said before, Republicans have every right to disagree with Obama’s progressive policies for this country, and if they want to hate him for sitting in a church with a radical pastor, then they can. Did you think little ole me is going to change people’s minds? So debating Chekote or you or other Republicans here on this issue is a waste of energy. You’re minds are set and so is mine.
He is the President of the U.S. He deserves some support and respect. He is facing monumental problems and issues and as we speak millions are losing their jobs, or benefits, etc… talking about Rev Wright is inconsequential at this point. I’m done on this issue.
142 sinz54 // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:04 am
agentprovocateur:
I am ACCUSING you and all your fellow Leftists of circling the wagons around Obama mostly because he’s BLACK.
You have this odd idea that it’s so important to have a BLACK President that you’re far more terrified of anything bad happening to him (whether it’s a failure of ObamaCare to be passed by Congress or even an assassination attempt) than you would have been if Hillary or Biden or even Dennis Kucinich were President.
It’s “radical chic,” the same sort of nonsense that your left-wing parents indulged in 30 years ago.
143 sinz54 // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:13 am
escapevelocity quotes ThinkProgress:
I have heard similar sentiments expressed by right-wingers about San Francisco or just about the entire Northeast. Go surf Redstate.com and you won’t see much love for the Deep Blue states expressed there.
This is a product of the political sorting-out that took place in recent decades. If you’re a Leftist, you’re going to hate the South for their deep and continuing support of social conservative candidates. If you’re a social conservative, you’re going to hate San Francisco and the Northeast for their “immoral” attitudes and support of candidates whose principles you find abhorrent.
144 Churl // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:34 am
Beck’s mob seems to be of such a size …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html
… that people who want to elect conservatives (if that is what “win again” means) ought to pay attention to its members.
145 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:01 am
#143
You just made my point. Different standards depending on race, ethnic factors. Wrong is wrong. Offensive is offensive.
146 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:07 am
if they want to hate him for sitting in a church with a radical pastor, then they can.
I don’t hate Obama for sitting in that church. I don’t hate him period. I am pointing out the different standards that people apply. I know this, if McCain had sat in a church that preached white supremacy he would have gotten a pass period like Obama did.
147 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:29 am
I am ACCUSING you and all your fellow Leftists of circling the wagons around Obama mostly because he’s BLACK
Wow. I am truly disappointed.
148 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:36 am
Beck’s mob seems to be of such a size …
What size was that?
Yes, some right wing commentators were claiming millions of protestors. But the Parks Department estimated 60-70K.
And really, 60-70K is a substantial size march. But the claim of millions seems to just illustrate a point that’s been made a lot – the Tea Bag community has a lot of problems with math.
149 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:40 am
McCain had sat in a church that preached white supremacy he would have gotten a pass period like Obama did.
FWIW, while Wright is an inflammatory bomb thrower who heightens racial divides at times (as anniemargret said, we’ve been presented Wright’s entire body of work as a very small set of highly offensive passages) … I don’t recall any time hearing that he claimed black supremacy.
He claimed that white people in America did some very bad things to black people. While grievously wrong on some of the specific claims, I think we can all agree that in fact white people in America HAVE done some very bad things to black people.
150 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 11:55 am
#153
More excuses. This is a right and wrong issue. No one should get a pass because they did some good or belong to a particular race.
151 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 12:04 pm
What excuses?
152 sinz54 // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:09 pm
balconesfault:
I’ve heard that sentiment expressed right here on New Majority by liberal posters: That oh dear, oh my, what would be the effect on race relations in America if something bad happened to Obama? That oh dear, oh, my what would be the effect on America’s image in Africa if something bad happened to Obama?
Give me a break. The idea of Obama as SYMBOL of some hoped-for post-racialism was part and parcel of the Obama campaign. How successful would his campaign have been, if he had been white and named John Smith? Most likely Hillary would be POTUS today.
153 brandon // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:10 pm
There is no excuse that can be made for Obama attending that church for 20 years and saying that Rev. Wright was one of his spiritual advisors. As I said above, I think he was a member for political reasons not because he subscribed to Wright’s teachings.
I’m sure Wright’s church has done some good in their community. But we all know the cliche about how under Mussolini the trains ran on time.
Obama was given a pass by the media on the Wright issue because he is African American. In the 5/31/04 issue of the New Republic, it was said that “Obama was taken with Wright’s worldview.” If McCain had once said he was “taken” with the worldview of David Duke, he would have been toasted by the media as Obama should have been.
154 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Sinz at 146, I agree with your “radical chic” analysis….and reference to the 60s.
Furthermore, I agree that Obama sat in the pews for political gain, however I do think that Obama holds the standard pathologies of the African American community, just not as deeply, and without AIDS conspiracy nonsense. You can see it in his prevaricating on Gates arrest….although, I think he was trying hard there not to immediately leap to the standard paranoid or pathological African American narrative of racism, racism, its all racism. To be honest, I thought better of Skip Gates as well, but he acted like a moron(not only in interacting with the police that were looking out for his property pretty damn well while he was away, but the next day in the media. The man should be deeply ashamed of himself, but I doubt that he is, and thus here we are in 2009, with people calling other AAs Uncle Toms and Race Traitors for espousing Conservative Principles, like judging people on the Content of their Character and not the Color of their Skin. In Ebony Jets list of 100 most influential African Americans, Clarence Thomas didnt even make the list, and such luminaries as Chris Rock did.
What a shame.
155 EscapeVelocity // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The broader problem is not that Rev. Wright is a conspiracy theorist, a racist, and a hater.
Its that his beliefs are widespread in the African American community, not fringe. And also reinforced and promoted by Western Leftists, African American resentment, racist identity politics, and hating Whitey and Western Civilization.
That is the true travesty. That Rev. Wright had weight and standing in the AA Community that Obama wished to convey on himself and had to ingratiate himself to that worldview. That is the real tragedy.
156 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Its that his beliefs are widespread in the African American community, not fringe.
After Katrina, I heard many AAs say that the government blew up the levys to kill poor blacks. These were individuals with post graduate degrees, upper middle class saying this.
157 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Sinz: That oh dear, oh my, what would be the effect on race relations in America if something bad happened to Obama? That oh dear, oh, my what would be the effect on America’s image in Africa if something bad happened to Obama?
I’m thinking that you want to apply a bit more discipline to your rhetoric. In fact, were “something bad” to happen to Obama (most reasonable observers would hear this and think Hinkley/Oswalt kind of bad) it would be a disaster for race relations in America. That’s just common sense. I haven’t heard the “image in Africa” thing, fwiw.
How successful would his campaign have been, if he had been white and named John Smith? Most likely Hillary would be POTUS today.
I disagree. Hillary would be POTUS today if she had gone forward early on and declared that her vote on the Iraq War resolution was wrong, however. Obama is POTUS in no small part for having been the strongest Democratic candidate who was most isolated from the stupidity of giving Bush the keys to the war machine.
escape: I do think that Obama holds the standard pathologies of the African American community
Ahh, that pathway to a New Majority open ever wider! Care to tell us about the standard pathologies of the Hispanic community while you’re at it?
That would be consistent, since you told us yesterday about the standard pathologies of the Jewish community in America, via citing the neocon Podheritz.
Soon we’ll know about the pathologies of everyone in America who doesn’t agree with Southern Republicans.
158 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 2:07 pm
The Tuskegee Experiment did more damage to the African American psyche than you will ever know. It’s generational, with people who are in their 50’s like me to this day afraid of doctors. It’ a mindset an 18 year old who grew up with friends of every color and Sesame Street isn’t likely to have.
It’s a legacy that is so hard for whites to understand. Obama is president and Oprah’s a billionaire what’s the problem?? A significant portion of the black population grew up under the Taliban in the south and the rest of us experienced their terror via television.
I am from Indianapolis and I remember that Zionsville and Greenwood were off limits to blacks after sundown. And it wasn’t because some random street thug would rob you, it was because a bunch of lower-middle class average Joes were prone to string you up, or so we were told.
Today both areas have black residents, but the lessons drilled into me as a boy stick. I wouldn’t live there anymore than I would live in Mississippi.
When I was growing up the Taliban were real, even if today’s fears are not. Don’t want a high percentage of paranoid people? Don’t enslave their ancestors and enforce racial terrorism for 100 years after their a freed from their shackles.
It’s America’s mess and it will just have to deal with it. It could be worse, we could be Ireland and instead of fiery speeches from old men or rude checkers at Target, you could have bands of enforcers kneecapping you and running a insurgency for that same amount of time. I hear they are still killing each other over there.
159 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 2:54 pm
More on the size of Beck’s crowd:
http://www.samefacts.com/2009/09/uncategorized/the-false-flag-lie/
One problem with telling a lie — especially a stupid, easy-refuted* lie
such as “There were more than 1 million teabaggers in Washington on 9/12″
– is that people might not believe you.
…
Matt Kibbe, who as President of Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks is more or less
the Teabagger-in-Chief, understands all this. So instead of telling the
crowd “There are a million or a million and a half people here,” he told
the crowd that ABC News was reporting that. By the time the figure had
finished bouncing around the wingnutosphere, it had risen to 2 million.
I don’t know whether that was the origin of the “Up to 2 million” figure
in the London Daily Mail, a newspaper-shaped object sometimes misaken for
an actual newspaper on this side of the pond; the Mail story headlines the
figure without explaining how it was derived. Then, of course, some
careless bloggers started to link to the Daily Mail story, quoting “Up to
2 million” as if it were fact, or near-fact. Glenn Reynolds, for example,
quotes the headline without giving its source, and adds, “cut it in half
and it’s still a huge number. Why is the British press more honest in its
reporting on this stuff than the American press?” (Note that by saying
“cut it in half,” Reynolds anchors on the 2 million number as if it had
some factual basis; the fact that the American press is reporting reality
rather than fantasy makes it, in Reynolds’s view, less “honest” than “the
British press,” where “the British press” seems to mean “the one tabloid
that reported a number I’d like to believe.”)
However, when this sort of tactic works too well, there’s going to be a
reaction. Once the false attribution to ABC started to make the rounds,
ABC put out a story reporting that ABC’s actual estimate of the crowd was
60-70,000, attributed to the DC Fire Department.
..
The one completely checkable fact in all this is that the President of
Freedom Works made a grossly false statement, and that Red Blogistan
eagerly spread that false statement around.
Just remember: they’re no more careful, and therefore no more to be
believed, when it comes to statements about, for example, the content of
health care reform. And when they attribute some claim to, for example,
the Congressional Budget Office, you might want to look it up.
160 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 3:52 pm
After almost fifty years of ensuring jokes about my name, I am certainly not going to say anything like: Dick Armey comes to Washington.
161 sinz54 // Sep 13, 2009 at 4:16 pm
rbottoms:
Sorry, that won’t wash.
Any competent mental health professional will tell you that paranoia is NEVER a justified response to stimuli. It constitutes connecting those dots that should never be connected in that way.
For example: There are UFO nuts who claim that the U.S. Government has been covering up UFOs for over 50 years. The facts are that the U.S. Government, like just about every other government, keeps secrets. The paranoia is that they are keeping secrets about UFOs, for which there is no evidence.
Slavery ended 140 years ago. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed 40 years ago. No black person under the age of 40 was alive in the time of Bull Connor.
For a young black person to continue to be suspicious of a young white person born in, say, 1980, just because he’s white, is irrational. It stems from the self-pity of knowing that blacks in America, unlike just about EVERY other ethnic group, never made it on their own, fighting discrimination with their own resources and achievements. Blacks were the permanent dependent of the Federal Government, from the Emancipation Proclamation to affirmative action.
And when you’re a permanent ward of the state, inevitably you end up losing your self-respect, and actually resenting that power structure for its paternalizing and patronizing.
And this “paranoia” isn’t going to under until blacks finally, totally, cut the umbilical cord to the Federal Government and decide that from now on, they’re going to meet racism and discrimination on its own terms, and fight it in their own way. Without constantly running to the Federal Government like a young kid running to mommy to protect him from bullies.
Sooner or later, like that young kid, blacks have to outgrow paternalism.
162 sinz54 // Sep 13, 2009 at 4:26 pm
escapevelocity:
We conservatives made a serious mistake in abandoning the blacks of the South to the tender mercies of Bull Connor and George Wallace.
By doing so, we drove blacks into the arms of the Left, who for all their faults did take up the cause of black discrimination.
In the late 1950s, National Review opined that Southern states had the constitutional right to enforce racial segregation. And NR didn’t have a moral problem with that either.
And in 1964, the conservative candidate, Barry Goldwater, opposed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. Though he did so on libertarian rather than social grounds, the damage was done.
In the 1980s, Jack Kemp tried hard to court the black vote by promoting self-reliance of blacks through venture capital and micro-lending to startup black-owned businesses. The rest of the GOP gave lip service but never followed suit. When Kemp passed away, I saw liberals breathe a sigh of relief that his vision of GOP-oriented black enterpreneurial class never came to pass.
We conservatives are supposed to stand for liberty, before all else. And yet we walked away from the biggest test of liberty in America–America’s treatment of blacks. And we’ve been paying for that ever since.
And now we’re doing it again. Instead of courting the Hispanic vote, too many conservatives are writing them off altogether. Nature abhors a vacuum–and if conservatives don’t go after the black and Hispanic votes, the Left will. Then we shouldn’t complain if blacks are voting Left and supporting Left causes. We never gave them a real alternative.
163 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Of course that means there’s quite a few of us who were.
Paternalism? I’ve paid more in taxes the last ten years than some of you in this blog made last year.
We are taxpayers and citizens just like everyone else.
If some of us are skeptical and maybe even venturing into believing a thing or two that isn’t true, so what. I hear a substantial number of people believe Elvis is alive, there’s a UFO at Area 51, and that George Bush was a competent president. To each his own.
Most black folks are just like most everybody else but a lot of so-called conservatives think time stopped in 1980 and the problems flowing out of the 60’s are exactly the same today.
Times have changed and I am not especially worried about the future of black America. Paternalism? We don’t need yours that’s for sure.
164 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 4:48 pm
The Tuskegee Experiment did more damage to the African American psyche than you will ever know.
Except that the people I was referring to were in their 30s.
Don’t want a high percentage of paranoid people? Don’t enslave their ancestors and enforce racial terrorism for 100 years after their a freed from their shackles
You can’t change history. People have to make a decision to move on or wallow in it.
165 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Who heard the stories of their parents in their 50’s – 70s, who aren’t describing ancient histiry but exactly what they grew up with.
So Jews can remember their history, the Shoah as they call it but blacks can only wallow in the past like the little children we all are. Paternalism much.
Most of America experienced 9/11 through thier televisions, eight years later quite a lot of people are still in shock. Never get over it? We got over Pearl Harbor as my Sony PlayStation attests.
All we really care about is cops not shooting us in the head (Diallo, Dorsimond), a fair shake at work (or getting the job in the first place), and an end to assaults on our sacred right to vote (caging).
Beyond that we use and deserve as much or as little of the social safety net as any other American who pays their taxes (and sales taxes, gas taxes, payroll taxes do count).
166 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 5:37 pm
rbottoms
It is one thing to remember. Another, is to believe that the government blew up the levys (which destroyed white and wealthy areas too) just to kill black people. If you can’t tell the difference, there is no point in talking to you.
167 greg_barton // Sep 13, 2009 at 6:03 pm
escapevelocity:
That little dalliance wasn’t with the Shrub, was it?
168 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 6:05 pm
And do you know how many, pray tell do believe it, beyond knowing a guy, who knows a guy, who heard it on Hannity, in round numbers.
169 greg_barton // Sep 13, 2009 at 6:09 pm
You know, I missed you guys. As I was driving an ATV on the way to see the longhorn herd I saw a couple of feral hogs run into the underbrush and I thought of escapevelocity and brandon.
170 ottovbvs // Sep 13, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Just got back from three weeks vac in Europe……suspicious activity I know…….reading matter I took with me included Richard Hofstadter’s Anti Intellectualism in American Life……hadn’t read it for 40 years……the bad news…..It’s as relevant today as when it was published in the early sixties……Hofstadter’s 100 percenters are still alive and well
“ChektoteSep 13, 2009 at 5:37 pm
rbottoms
It is one thing to remember. Another, is to believe that the government blew up the levys”
…….And btw Chek…..it’s Levee’s
171 brandon // Sep 13, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Greg, we aren’t running into the underbrush anytime soon.
While the best you can do is insult, we will continue to counter you with cold hard facts.
172 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 7:53 pm
rbottoms: The Tuskegee Experiment did more damage to the African American psyche than you will ever know.
chekote: Except that the people I was referring to were in their 30s.
And I thought this got kicked off by another Reverand Wright-a-Pallooza. I didn’t check his Wikipedia entry, but I’m pretty sure he’s older than 30.
173 greg_barton // Sep 13, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Now, see, that’s unfair. Who said that was an insult?
174 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 8:40 pm
chekote: It is one thing to remember. Another, is to believe that the government blew up the levys (which destroyed white and wealthy areas too) just to kill black people.
Yes, but let’s face it – consider some of the crazy coming from the right wing these days, chekote, including from some of the commentors here. Like death panels.
And remember – right after the Katrina flooding, we had plenty of commentators on the right talking about how the floods were potentially a bonanza – how the wards were cleaned out, how much of the black population of New Orleans would not be returning, and how this would create opportunities for an economic and social transformation of NOLA (not to mean an electoral boon for the Republican Party in Louisiana).
Sad to say, the dialogue is absolutely poisoned on all ends. But while various black individuals might have been speaking their conspiracy theories in private, Glen Beck gets hours a week to broadcast his to the American public via a major network.
175 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 8:43 pm
I saw a couple of feral hogs run into the underbrush and I thought of escapevelocity and brandon.
Now now. But they do tear up the landscape, don’t they?
Some have infested the woods around where I live – they’re hell on the trails, just digging up any area that’s not covered in juniper thicket.
176 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Still waiting on that other fellow to get back to me with his count of how many black people believe the dikes were blown up. But I am not surprised, he used a typical tactic that usually works until one is asked to produce some actual numbers to back up a generalization.
177 Jim // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Sinz writes:
And now we’re doing it again. Instead of courting the Hispanic vote, too many conservatives are writing them off altogether. Nature abhors a vacuum–and if conservatives don’t go after the black and Hispanic votes, the Left will. Then we shouldn’t complain if blacks are voting Left and supporting Left causes. We never gave them a real alternative.
Sinz, Sinz, where do I begin? How do I put this into words?
Oh, here it is. (I’m laughing as I write this next line…)
When racial diversity becomes the the highest concern of the Republican party, then the Republican party has ceased to exist as a philosophical alternative to the Democrats. Can you see that? It means that the party which values individual effort over group identity politics ceases to stand for anything other than winning elections. To a limited extent, it’s a good idea for the Republicans to highlight people of diverse backgrounds within their ranks, as it sends a clear message that true conservatives of all backgrounds are genuinely welcome within the party. For the Republican party to do anything more than that would be intellectually self-defeating.
Adults make their own decisions on how to live. A hispanic adult can choose to get up, to go to work, to raise their children decently, to save money for their childrens’ education, and to make sure that their children get an education which enables them to live a better life. Or that same hispanic adult can choose to join a gang, to father kids they can’t raise (or to get knocked up at age 14), to live on welfare, and to stay in the ghetto. Most Cuban-Americans in Florida, for example, chose the first path. Those people, by and large, also tend to vote Republican. It was their own choice to be self-reliant (and anti-communist) first which led them to self-identify as Republicans, not the other way around. If the Republican party should be doing any “reaching out,” it should be to groups which already share our ethic of entrepreneurship, self-reliance and individual achievement, such as East and South Asians.
178 rbottoms // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:58 pm
You talking about LA or Belfast.
179 balconesfault // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:58 pm
What still gets me is how so many Republicans keep ignoring one simple principle that would over the long term give them the chance to win over minority voters.
And it’s not, as Jim put it, making “racial diversity … the highest concern of the Republican party”.
It’s drumming out racist rhetoric from being acceptable dialogue. Period.
It’s taking on each politician, each talk show host, each pundit … hell, on boards like this, each commentor … who recycles racial stereotypes and uses offensive racial language and telling them to cut the crap out.
The current instinct – to defend the racist language … to say “I hear blacks using the N-word all the time”, or “it was just a joke”, or “but it’s ok when someone says ‘Cracker’ or puts down fundamentalist Christians” … just solidifies the wall between Republicans and minority communities.
Next time you hear someone defend racist speech by saying “oh, here comes the PC crowd again”, just tell them – cut … that … crap … out.
180 Chekote // Sep 13, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Sorry. It is the levees. English is my second language.
181 brandon // Sep 14, 2009 at 12:20 am
Finally balconesfault says something I can somewhat agree with.
I agree 100% about drumming out racist rhetoric from the party. I disagree that this is all it would take to start winning over minority voters. We have to get across that our policies are ones that will move the nation forward and will make their children have a brighter future.
But right now, we are perceived as the party of “angry old white men” and you can’t win long term in the future if that is your only demographic.
182 rbottoms // Sep 14, 2009 at 12:39 am
It’s not that I want you guys to win so much as I’d like the temperature to come down all around.
Here’s one thing you guys can do.
Stop talking about the black community’s concerns like it’s still 1980. Our day to day problems are pretty much the same as everybody. Our concerns with education a perhaps more important to us, but you aren’t going to get anywhere with us by going on about trying to teach the Earth is 4,000 years old in science class.
We don’t trust vouchers because a lot of us remember that the reason there are so many private “Christian” schools now is because of a flight from integration. Prove you really, really mean it and are no longer angling to abolish the Department of Education.
Since so many of us are in the Army, how about concentrating of pay, family support, and weapons that don’t cost a billion dollars each.
You know whose communities are the site for factory hog farms and other dirty, polluting industries? It ain’t Beverly Hills that’s for sure. How about really caring about plant safety, adherence to OSHA rules, and affordable health insurance.
That should keep you busy for a decade or so.
Oh, and the first one of the 2012 candidates who goes near Bob Jones University loses.
183 Jim // Sep 14, 2009 at 12:41 am
brandon says:
But right now, we are perceived as the party of “angry old white men” and you can’t win long term in the future if that is your only demographic.
I guess you forgot about women, huh?
184 brandon // Sep 14, 2009 at 12:59 am
Jim, I’m not so sure we are perceived as a party with many women even though I saw some pictures of some angry ones during the teaparty coverage: http://www.gallup.com/poll/118207/Republicans-Face-Steep-Uphill-Climb-Among-Women.aspx
rbottoms, according to a recent Harvard study African Americans support school vouchers more than the public at large:
“African Americans show greater support for school vouchers (57 percent) than the population as a whole”
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news_features_releases/2009/08/obama-effect-strongly-influences-public-attitudes-on-controversial-education-topics.html
185 greg_barton // Sep 14, 2009 at 1:13 am
jim:
Have you ever seen the Monty Python film, “Life of Brian”? The republican party reminds me of that:
Brian: “You’re all individuals!”
Crowd: “YES! WE’RE ALL INDIVIDUALS!”
Some people just don’t see the joke in everyone getting together in lockstep to promote individuals. It’s gets even funnier coming from the “you’re either with us or against us” crowd.
186 EscapeVelocity // Sep 14, 2009 at 1:30 am
Is that you Rbottoms?
Video: Kanye West dissing Whitey at VMA awards…
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/14/video-kanye-wests-place-in-jackass-hall-of-fame-now-secure/
187 raygun // Sep 14, 2009 at 2:08 am
this has officially become my favorite thread here, ever.
188 rbottoms // Sep 14, 2009 at 2:27 am
But since we further don’t trust the GOP to implement them without it being part of some ulterior motive to weaken public schools we never push the Democrats to implement it.
If there was ever one issue where the GOP could find a Teddy Kennedy-like figure to work across the aisle to implement it this it. But any one of you who really tried in good faith to pull it off would be derided as a RINO because it would require saying goof things about public schools in general and copping to the Christian school bugout of the 70’s & 80’s.
Instead of introducing birther pleasing bills, someone in the GOP make this your #1 priority.
I shall begin holding my breath now.
189 rbottoms // Sep 14, 2009 at 2:37 am
BTW, I note that one of you is still jumping up and down on this and other threads trying to flag my attention. The problem with being in an /ignore list is, you get ignored.
As for the rest of you, interesting discussion. I have no desire to see the GOP slow down the big Caddy with Glenn Beck at the wheel and Rush high on hillbilly heroin in the back seat.
I want him to go faster , to keep slaloming all around the electoral Dead Man’s curve, but that would hurt the country, so what I am really rooting for is for the red lights to show up in his read view mirror so he will slow down before something bad like Oklahoma City happens again.
I truly don’t believe the GOP is capable of a rational discussion anymore. It’s death panels, birthers, and Ghurka-run death camps from now until 2012. Prove me wrong and we’re all better off for it.
190 Kevin B // Sep 14, 2009 at 3:46 am
Go Rush! Go Glenn! Go Sarah!
No, seriously. Go.
191 sinz54 // Sep 14, 2009 at 12:50 pm
rbottoms:
Bush already tried to improve PUBLIC schools, with his No Child Left Behind Act.
The standardized testing and accountability provisions of NCLB are specifically intended to raise the academic performance of public schools. And NCLB required public school districts to focus on raising the academic performance of disadvantaged kids. NCLB isn’t perfect, there are critics–but this did represent the first national attempt to force public schools to clean up their act, particular with the disadvantaged.
And Bush worked with Ted Kennedy to get NCLB passed with truly bipartisan support.
Bush got NO credit for it from blacks like you. Zero. Nada.
The fact that even No Child Left Behind was ignored by blacks, proves that black suspicion of the GOP has nothing to do with specific policies. It’s got to do with black distrust of Southern whites, who everybody recognizes are now the major component of the GOP’s base.
Blacks just won’t trust a political party dominated by Southern whites, period.
So the GOP should just give up trying to appeal to blacks for the present time. Not until it can first attain a significant presence in the Northeast again, where the GOP used to be strong. Maybe then blacks will feel more comfortable with a more broadly-based GOP.
192 sinz54 // Sep 14, 2009 at 1:05 pm
jim:
You couldn’t win an election for dog catcher that way. In fact, you couldn’t sell ANY political ideas that way.
A political party doesn’t just stand there issuing pronouncements and waiting for millions of people to come flocking to its doors, pleading to be admitted. Politics is a personal contact sport. Would you like to see more Hispanics join the GOP? Then you have to go out there and meet with THEM, and be able to address THEIR concerns and answer THEIR questions. And if they don’t like what you’re selling, then you lose.
Sure, all Americans have concerns in common, regardless of ethnicity. But each ethnicity also has issues of its own: The Jews care about Israel; and Hispanics care about immigration.
Ordinary Americans don’t owe anything to the GOP or any other political party. That’s not how we do things in the American two-party system. Each party is there to represent their interests. And that means Hispanic interests, Jewish interests, white interests, black interests, and the interests of anyone else who happens to want to be part of the party. Anyone who feels the GOP isn’t representing the issues they care about, or who feels unwelcome in the GOP, will try the Dems instead.
And if only “true conservatives” are welcome within the GOP, then you will have to be content with being a regional party like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cartogram-2008_Electoral_Vote.png
because there aren’t enough “true conservatives” (as YOU would define the term) to win many elections in the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, or the Rust Belt anymore. Even New Mexico will be a solidly Dem state if the Hispanic vote remains in the Dem column.
So you go ahead, keep the GOP the rump party of the white folks in South and Mountain States, and wait and wait and wait for other folks to “discover” it someday. Good luck with that.
193 EscapeVelocity // Sep 14, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Im with Jim. Its likely that it is a losing formula for the GOP, but its the moral and right formula.
If its just going to become a tribalist affair where people join based on what special priveleges and rights and protections and handouts that someones group or groups get, then not only is the Republican Party destroyed, the United States and liberty is.
George Washington realized long ago, that as soon as the poor realized that they could vote to “redistribute wealth” (he didnt use that terminology but its the sam) that the United States and the priniples that it was founded upon would be destroyed.
There are folks from every race, creed, sex, etnicity, and religion, that are attracted by the ideals and principles that this country was founded upon…that is why millions try to get here any way they can and become citizens….the GOP upholds those values of the United States. That may be a losing formula, however it shouldnt be abandoned to anyone, especially for identity politics.
BTW, I see in future that certain groups that dont for the most part play identity politics and are dissallowed from the game anyways and villified in the most forceful ways if they do, will play identity politics, and then the hell you helped create will come to it fruition. Because real white identity politics racists pushing on all fronts, legal, material wealth redistribution, rights and priveleges…..wont be very accomadating of minority rights and well being.
But go ahead…..abandon the principles that prevent that kind of ugliness from occuring and join the Leftwingers in identity politics.
Europe will show you why the American Conservative and his/her ideals and principles are much preferable to them, soon enough.
194 balconesfault // Sep 14, 2009 at 5:11 pm
George Washington realized long ago, that as soon as the poor realized that they could vote to “redistribute wealth” (he didnt use that terminology but its the sam)
Where the hell did that come from?
195 Glenn Beck Is On Our Side « NewsReal Blog // Sep 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm
[...] Frum has responded — sort of — to my Newsreal critique of his blistering attack on Glenn Beck in tones you would normally use for a Ward Churchill or a William Ayers or a Cynthia [...]
196 Jim // Sep 14, 2009 at 7:51 pm
So, Sinz. What do you think the Republican party should do to woo black and hispanic voters? Please be specific.
197 agentprovocateur // Sep 14, 2009 at 9:58 pm
re: sinz54 // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:04 am
Wow, who knew that mind reading was one of your talents? How utterly amazing! You have no idea why I support the president, so your ridiculous speculation is way off the mark. I have given you no reason at all to think that I believe it’s so important to have a black president. I do wonder where all this wild-eyed hypothesizing is coming from on your part. Oh, by the way, my parents weren’t left-wing devotees of “radical chic”.
What do you think the Republican party [sic] should do to woo black and hispanic [sic] voters?
Oh please, a better question is, when will the Republican Party stop repelling black and Hispanic voters?
198 greg_barton // Sep 15, 2009 at 1:16 am
escapevelocity:
See? What did I tell ya’ll? Wild boar.
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