Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
I’ve been out of the country for a couple of days, so let me see if I’ve got this right:
America’s preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of Good King Barack the Hopeychanger’s reign by electing a Republican?
In Massachusetts?
In what the tin-eared plonkers of the Democrat machine still insist on calling “Ted Kennedy’s seat”? Continue reading →
An obscure 2008 academic article gained traction with bloggers over the weekend. The article was written by the head of Obama’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein. He’s a good friend of the president and the promoter the contradictory idea: “libertarian paternalism”. In the article, he muses about what government can do to combat “conspiracy” theories:
…we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies … will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity. Continue reading →
This past Friday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called for the federal government to bail out the taxpayers of his state to the tune of some $6.9 billion. The request comes amid efforts to close a $19.9 billion gap in his proposed $82.9 billion 2010-2011 fiscal budget. We hear daily news stories of governors all over the United States struggling to close similar gaping holes in their states’ budgets. By what rationale is California more deserving than others? Schwarzenegger argues his case on two fronts. First, he points out that Californians pay far more in federal taxes than they ever receive in federal disbursements. Second, he suggests that the burden of complying with unfunded federal mandates is one of the chief culprits bankrupting his state. Let’s take each of these arguments in turn. Continue reading →
“Sarah Palin, do you guys really like her?”
My dad’s doctor asked me this a couple of weeks ago. His smile seemed to shout, “Are you guys crazy?” I had taken my 94-year-old Republican father to see him several times, but politics never came up. Did the doc really want to go there? It went something like this:
“What’s the problem with her?” I said.
“Well, she’s, she’s –”
“Stupid?”
“All right.”
“Really? Why, because she isn’t as glib or articulate as you elites like? She didn’t answer Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson the way President Obama would have?”
“Yes – I’m one of those elites.”
“How stupid do you have to be to take on the establishment in Alaska and win? How stupid do you have to be to have – at the time Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked her – an 84 percent popularity rating in Alaska? She had more executive experience than Obama.”
“Well, she doesn’t come across as prepared.” Continue reading →
Culturally, this has been the decade of the reality show. And what do we have to show for it? Not much more than the contestants themselves.
Survey the wreckage. Richard Hatch, the first “Survivor”champion, was just released from prison (he didn’t pay taxes on his winnings). The marriage of the Octoparents, Jon and Kate, is in shambles. Richard and Mayumi Heene were so desperate to land a reality series, they concocted an enormous hoax, convincing the country that their child had been carried away in a balloon. Michaele and Tareq Salahi tried to claw their way onto the sure-to-be-hideous series “Real Housewives of D.C.” by brazening their way into a White House state dinner. And alleged wife-killer Ryan Jenkins, a contestant on two VH1 shows, is a stark reminder that fame is not a reflection of good character. Continue reading →
We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.
We shall never surrender — unless the war gets too expensive, in which case, we shall quote Dwight Eisenhower on “the need to maintain balance in and among national programs” and then insist that “we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.”
The quotes are from President Barack Obama’s West Point speech announcing the Afghanistan troop surge. What a strange speech it was — a call to arms so ambivalent, so tentative, so defensive.
Which made his last-minute assertion of “resolve unwavering” so hollow. It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. Continue reading →
