Where No Man Has Gone Before
Rich Lowry’s reply to Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann’s threat to sue the National Review over a Mark Steyn article which reflected less than creditably on the climate scientist was essentially met by a dare to open a can of worms. Lowry wrote:
Possessing not an ounce of Steyn’s wit or eloquence, poor Michael didn’t try to engage him in a debate. He sent a laughably threatening letter and proceeded to write pathetically lame chest-thumping posts on his Facebook page. …
If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.
Go ahead. Make my day.
That is to say any lawsuit Mann might attempt would force upon the all the files and records on which Mann’s reputation depended and Lowry was confident that Mann had so little left he would not risk the pitiful remainder. This is the standard defense against plaintiffs with too much to hide. The reason “espionage trials are rare [is] because there’s a danger the accused will spill even more secrets during the court proceedings — a defence tactic known as ‘greymail,’ said Craig Forcese, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who has written extensively on national security.”
It’s hard to know when climate science became vulnerable to greymail which is more popularly known through the phrase “you don’t want to go there”. It captures the essence of this argument. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. And the effects of “going there” were felt again as government officials cracked down on a “former Navy SEAL who penned a firsthand account of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden”.
Most recently, a small group of former special operations and intelligence officials – many with Republican ties – published an online video called “Dishonorable Disclosures” in which they say the President was trying to take credit for bin Laden’s death from the SEALs on the ground. That video was later reportedly criticized by others in the military as “unprofessional” and “shameful.”
Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL and writer , told ABC News that Owen may be compromising one of America’s most elite and secretive commando groups, even if he used a pseudonym and changed the names of the other team members.
But the administration was there first. And the political problem with the crackdown is that administration has been leaking Bin Laden secrets like sieve when it can make those diclosures flattering to the administration. That makes their protests about protecting national security less convincing than they might have been. Even Glenn Greenwald writing in the Guardian can see the double standards flapping in the wind.
What makes that so much worse, though, is that at exactly the same time that it was telling a court that the mission is too secret to permit such disclosure, the White House launched a coordinated campaign of selective media leaking that had only one purpose: to glorify the president for political gain.
Thus the same administration that resisted judicial disclosure pursuant to transparency laws leaked bits and pieces about the mission (always favorable to the president) to their favorite media message-carriers; secretly met with and shoveled information to big Hollywood filmmakers planning a pre-election release of a film about the Bin Laden raid (now pushed back until December in the wake of the ensuing controversy, though the already-released film trailer – see below – will soon be inundating the nation); and then sat down with one of America’s most obsequious, military-revering news anchors for an hour-long prime-time special that spoke of the raid with predictable awe but asked none of the hard questions about these lingering issues.
The administration can hardly declare as sacred soil a patch of ground over which it has itself led a herd of trumpeting elephants. Recently Tim Stanley writing in the Telegraph made exactly this kind of observation after President Obama demanded that Romney release his tax returns. “Perhaps it’s time Romney asked to see his college records.” These days you don’t have to be a Birther. Just being a Colleger will do.
The current presidential campaign is like those cartoons where the animated protagonists resort to successively more outrageous methods of retaliation. Eventually Daffy Duck ends it all by blowing away Donald Duck with a howitzer. But the political races to the bottom aren’t usually as funny as the Loony Tunes.
Greg Sargent of the Washington Post notes that President Obama made a special appearance at the White House briefing room to declare that Mitt Romney’s campaign was based on lies. “In a surprise appearance before reporters at the White House just now, Obama made a striking, if perhaps long overdue, charge: He pushed back on GOP claims he’s running a dirty campaign by arguing that Romney’s entire campaign is based on flat out lies.” Ironically the lie he accuses Romney of was of the form: ‘Governor Romney is lying when he says I lied.’
Obama was questioned sharply by a reporter who pointed to the Priorities USA ad featuring the dead woman and the Obama campaign’s pressure on Romney to release his tax returns, and asked whether he regretted his campaign’s tone. Obama responded, in part:
“I don’t think that Governor Romney is somehow responsible for the death of the woman that was portrayed in that ad. But keep in mind, this is an ad that I didn’t approve; I did not produce; and as far as I can tell, has barely run. I think it ran once. Now, in contrast, you’ve got Governor Romney creating as a centerpiece of his campaign this notion that we’re taking work requirement out of welfare. Which every single person here who’s looked at it says, it’s patently false…
“Everybody who’s looked at this says what Governor Romney is saying is absolutely wrong. Not only are his Super PACs running millions of dollars worth of ads making this claim; Governor Romney himself is approving this and saying it on the stump. So the contrast I think is pretty stark. They can run the campaign that they want; but the truth of the matter is, you can’t just make stuff up. That’s one thing you learn as president of the United States. You get called into account.”
Surely the President doesn’t lie. When did he ever? But given the number and frequency of dubious political accusations out there one is tempted to conclude the president can be wrong. Of course you can make stuff up. The trick is to invent falsehoods and sling mud so fast and furiously that before one lie is discovered you are on to another. It is like skating on ice. If you can propel yourself forward quickly enough momentum alone will keep you upright. If you head for the bottom fast enough, you’ll get there before the Rich Lowrys of the world have the time to catch up to you. Maybe that way you can get to the White House via the basement. By all means necessary; any which way you can.
In the most recent twist, Obama’s Dashboard Platform which can be used to launch whispering campaigns had this interesting suggestion from an activist. ”I’m thinking that even though we don’t LIKE campaigns to get nasty, we in the south (TN) come to EXPECT it,” De Palma began. “What we also know is that we have a very ‘rigid’ view of Christianity, and apparently, Mormonism isn’t anywhere in our views. This could easily win TN/SC/AL/GA, etc.” And therefore it behooved them to allege that Mormonism taught that there countless gods and beings on other planets. You know, just like Gaia and Xenu, who of course are alright.
Michael Mann is a one hockey-stick player. But the politicians have got a whole lot of hockey sticks, baseball bats, boxing gloves and medicine balls they can still toss around. Maybe the only truth left in politics is that so very little of it is true. Maybe the most interesting thing about the cheapening of the truth is it indicates the breakdown of civil discourse.
In a society where citizens are at peace with each other even little lies are serious. But in one riven by conflict, nothing matters but the “larger truths”; the fibs told to advance the cause are not frowned on because all is fair in love and war. In Christianity where all men are exhorted to be at permanent peace lies remain sins — at least in theory. But in religions or ideologies at permanent war with unbelievers, lies are of no consequence if they advance the goal.
This is perhaps the biggest price political discourse will pay for the cheapening of this campaign. It has become about winning at all costs.
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Attacking Mark Steyn’s way with words has never been a winning strategy for anyone. Perhaps Mr Mann thinks he just some blogger at home in his PJ’s.
One result of a discovery process in a Mann lawsuit is that it will find out that there is a lot of nothing there. Other than embarassing e-mails and cherry-picked data, it will be discovered that much of the research was shoddy, and — in the case of East Anglia (Mann’s allies) — that old data was thrown away.
James Taranto at Best of the Web writes about the Manichaean nature of the left and their Gnostic beliefs. “Out of Mani, One.”
http://tinyurl.com/8fn7jo9
These are themes I sometimes hit. Other times I miss. He, in turn, links to David Solway at PJM.
I remember reading that Mann sued some fellow in British Columbia named Tim Ball because the BCer (pun intended?
) said something quasi-cute about Mann, to wit: “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the State Pen, not Penn State.”
This suit was filed over a year ago, I believe. But I don’t know what’s come of it. However, the same argument was made then, that discovery would force Mann to reveal the information that would finish him off by proving him a fraudster.
His actions certainly strongly suggest he’s a bad-tempered fool.
The following website has some info on it–from a quick glance it looks like the lawsuit is still ongoing:
http://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/desmogblog-fail-with-pop-gun-character-assassination-ploy/
An Préachán
We really need an Environmental Scopes Trial.
Not that the famous monkey trial cleared the air. If anything it made the fundi’s even more rabid.
On the other hand it would really sink all the crooks who have hitched their wagon to the environmental movement. That would save huge amounts of tax dollars.
Stoi, Better yet , we need Congressional Hearings on all the fraudulent studies that Congress has paid for. All those thousands of academic studies that the Hockey Stick edifice was built on need to be examined. If found fraudulent, all those Universities that foisted this mountain of crap on us need to cut off from further moolah. Period.
In a manner analogous to nuclear disarmament, the McCain-Finegold Act, designed to “get the money out of politics” has resulted in more money than ever before in politics. But this time it is coming from groups who we cannot really identify, and has also delivered plausible deniability for politicians who can say “It wasn’t me!” with all of the sincerity of Hitler saying that he, himself, had never actually even seen a Nazi Death Camp.
Sounds like a bill that was written by two politicans with something to hide.
But now lying buys you something and with no consequences, even if you are found out.
Bill Clinton lied, under oath, and was praised for it as being sensitive to people’s feelings.
We were told we had to go into Kosovo because they had done the math and at least 100,000 civilians lie moldering in mass graves there, soon to be 200,000 if we did not start bombing ASAP. No mass graves were ever found in Kosovo.
And nobody ever gets “called to account.”
Remember how in Tolkien’s stories you slipped into another, parallel world when you put on the Ring. It was as if you granted an alternative view of reality when you peered through the lens of the Ringwraiths.
James Taranto’s essay describes the same effect. The difference between the political sides today is more than policy or percentages. It has become a fundamental distinction in world views. Taranto talks about the strange aloofness of the President among his billionaire supporters. They are liberal, like him. But he is not of them. Rather he has been vouchsafed some secret view of the new world and charged with creating it.
A recent article in the Weekly Standard captures another facet of this strangeness. At a fundraiser featuring ex-NBA greats Obama said, “It is very rare I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person.” The inescapable conclusion of that remarks is that most other times he finds himself on a higher plane than everyone else in the room.
How very strange. I usually find myself the least interesting person in the room, perhaps because that is the objective truth, but in part because the other people are mysteries about which I am eager to learn about. A roomful of interesting people is like a storehouse of lore whose stories are only waiting to burst out. But for Obama they are uninteresting miniatures, there to get his autograph. “Usually the folks want to take a picture with me, sit next to me, talk to me.” But which of us goes through life thinking the world revolves around us? Those who do are more often than not insufferable.
That remark at the NBA fundraiser is one example of the differences in tone that make the President seem strange. My take on the Birthing phenomenon is that people noticed the strangeness first and looked for the reasons explaining it only afterward. The simplest, most naive explanation for the foreign aura he exudes is to suppose he might have been born in Kenya or Indonesia.
But Bob Hope was foreign born, as were many others, without ever giving off the aura of strangeness which, despite the best efforts of the handlers, escapes from the President like body odor from cologne. The roots of that oddity do not spring from the soil beneath the cradle in either Hawaii or Mombasa. They have to do with his upbringing and formation.
They come from the parts of Obama which we don’t know and which we will never be told of For the other source of unease emphasized by the facility with which his campaign spins yarns is the suggestion of falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus. Lies don’t bother him at all. Oddly enough the Left wing of the Democratic party is nearly as wroth at him as the most conservative of Republicans, but for reason other than policy. He lied to them — about Guantanamo, about Afghanistan, about the budget about everything. They feel the betrayal of squandered trust. I probably feel less enmity toward him than the extreme Left for I never believed a thing he said in the first place and therefore think as well of him now as I did in 2008.
The one person who is said to know him is Valerie Jarrett, who is said to have put the idea of his messianic mission into his head in the first place and who sustains it daily. Who knows? Personally I do not blame Barack Obama for trying to get as far as he did. Anyone has the right to do that. What is truly astonishing is how this very strange man rose so far and so fast in the Democratic Party. My own guess is that he did it by being the Party’s Jarrett. Their Svengali. He told them what they wanted to hear; that they were special; that failure did not matter if could be concealed; that bankruptcy was the way to riches and gay marriage the pathway to happiness. He sold them on the idea that lies are really just another form of deep truth. And they loved it because they made necessity into a virtue.
Maybe democracy has been gradually weakening in America. It is now at the point where many — at least the Left — look to a king, or at least to a therapist. It is no longer primarily a society of equals talking to each other; making a flawed but self-conscious enterprise of raising a barn. Rather it is agglomeration of camps, all of them lost, seeking safety in a king for whom they can lie, cheat and plunder for.
The Mann lawsuit, or threat thereof, is endemic of all government corruption. The pseudo science of global warming is a thin pretense to justify the usurpation of liberties and the overthrow of constitutional law. It has been reported that the state department has set guidelines that allows people with self-proclaimed mental disabilities to keep their jobs when the administration turns over. In other words, they are rewriting the laws so they can stake a claim to perpetual employment as enemies of the new administration.
Every good thing turns into crap at the hands of these anarchists. That is why I beat baby seals with a club.
Maybe democracy has been gradually weakening in America.
What has been weakening in America is the belief in God. It has been almost extirpated from the democratic party. Obama’s embrace of homosexual marriage may be a wake up call for some of the black electorate but probably not many.
See John Adam’s quote.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_adams.html#69ovMkGzeOWae8QB.99
It is now at the point where many — at least the Left — look to a king, or at least to a therapist.
The way to keep the country from drifting onto the arms of a king is to restore the belief in God.
It is no longer primarily a society of equals talking to each other; making a flawed but self-conscious enterprise of raising a barn.
One age is yet aborning another. America’s greatest days are still ahead. Those days when the great off world migrations begin, the deserts of the earth are turned green and the heavy riches of space are brought to earth.
What’s being stored up too is the heavy hangover after the great migration. The out there becomes the out there and here is forever. The great split of destinies as happened between the old world and the new world over the last 500 years.
Rather it is agglomeration of camps, all of them lost, seeking safety in a king for whom they can lie, cheat and plunder for.
Unless the USA can be rechristianized than this is what things will look like after the gold rush to space.
Know who you are bluffing.
Over forty years ago an ambitious Ensign was on the bridge of a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam. A large surface contact was reported on the radar. The Ensign grabbed the cryptography with one hand and the radio microphone with the other. In a firm voice he broadcast an order in code. “Unknown contact off my port bow this is the United States warship Umptysquat. Authenticate Whiskey Sierra. Over.” The reply came in clear voice with a languid Southern accent. “USS Umptysquat this is the battleship New Jersey. You may fire when ready.”
“That’s one thing you learn as president of the United States. You get called into account.”
Ding ding ding. We have a winner. But seriously folks, for our next act …
The Democrats are furious. The Republicans are going off script. The Donks may want a new Director or Producer. They want their lawyers and agents. If you are in the GOP and refuse to roll over as expected then be warned. You’ll never eat lunch in this town again.
Via Drudge — Ex-NPR Hill reporter: Lied to daily
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79998.html
This is interesting. She felt it her job to report the lies as if they weren’t lies. Granted, she had NPR listeners as her audience. Still, it upset her. Yeah, speaking as a former listener it upset me, too (which explains the word former).
Now she is starting a web sight to unmask the lies. That’s got to be a hoot. Maybe she thinks the Republicans are about to take over? Could this be a leading indicator? Starting in November will it once more be “truth to power” time?
Here’s the old school way of dealing with this issue!
I saw the best sign on the back of a pickup truck the other day that read, “If you voted for Obama in the last election to prove you weren’t a racist, then please vote for anyone else this election to prove you aren’t an idiot.”
Charles – “The way to keep the country from drifting onto the arms of a king is to restore the belief in God.”
A majority of Americans believe in God Charles. The problem is that our government has become the champion for the minority voice and bends law and reason to protect atheists from the being insulted by the beliefs of others thus violating our rights of freedom of religion. The government does not zealously protect the minority view… they wield power by seeking to muzzle the view of the majority. No righteous power succeeds by subjugating the few, they must subjugate the masses and make them bend to their will publicly, like hanging Gessler’s hat in the town square. They are motivated by unbounded hate and ungodly desires no embodied in ‘liberation theology’.
How very strange. I usually find myself the least interesting person in the room, perhaps because that is the objective truth, but in part because the other people are mysteries about which I am eager to learn about.
I think it’s called modesty.
It’s out of fashion … if it was ever in since, say, Kwai Chang Caine and/or Teddy Roosevelt, but even so I’m sure it has never been common among politicians.
In this media age – I can’t particularly fault Obambus for it, that is, on the list of stuff I do fault him for, this is down at least sixty or seventy items. He may be President Kardashian as Rush calls him, but hey, we voted him in, and maybe the modern president is supposed to *play* the most interesting man in the world, even when he ain’t. Along with a modicum of administrative talent (which he ain’t got), that’s pretty much the job description. I have no expectation that we’re going to find good candidates for god emperor, and the salary isn’t sufficient for those qualifications anyway.
“What is truly astonishing is how this very strange man rose so far and so fast in the Democratic Party.”
I don’t think it’s strange at all, when you stop to consider the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Left/Democratic Party. There’s no there there. People with such deficiencies can be captured by pretty much any kind of charlatan you can imagine. Their world view (bread and circuses for everybody) carries the weight it does in our polarized politics not because it can withstand scrutiny, but because they and their mouthpieces in the academy, the arts and the media, and the “social industries” own the culture. That Republicans are getting a word in edgewise right now is owed entirely to the terrible economic predicament we’re in. “Hey, maybe they’re not so dumb after all.”
Obama was the perfect package to hang the aspirations of a party upon. Obama, a clean and articulate black man, academic, and ideological liberal was the perfect conman. He conned the left, he conned the middle, and he conned the right in the inevitability of his ascendance. But Obama, to his credit, was his own man more than a cynical Charlatan. He never told a lie that the listener wasn’t willing to believe. There are few who are more vulnerable to a con than those who lust for power. You have just been sold the Brooklyn bridge and you can’t take it with you. You are the people that Obama has been waiting for.
“What is truly astonishing is how this very strange man rose so far and so fast in the Democratic Party.”
I was agree with RAS, it isn’t strange. Obama has perfected the art of encouraging someone to project good feelings upon him when none are justified. He made sure to the public that he was a blank slate upon which he could con masses of people to project their political and other fantasies on to.
He is a practiced, master con artist. That is required of the Leader of the Democratic Party these days.
8. wretchard
Great stuff but…..
“He sold them on the idea that lies are really just another form of deep truth. And they loved it because they made necessity into a virtue.”
Clinton made people feel comfortable with their sins. Obama told them sins were virtues.
“Maybe democracy has been gradually weakening in America”
No – democracy is getting too strong in America.
5. stoicheion
We really need an Environmental Scopes Trial.
And Mann would be the Darwinist and agnostic, Darrow. I certainly see a correlation there.
lies, lies and damned lies.
nah.
it is really the economy, stupid.
we wonks go go,
but regular people eat.
obama is toast and will be where dinner goes in the morning.
after the flush, it gets better.
burp.
obama is nothing, but a little swiriling bit of feces that floats up to the top.
i just don’t feel the need to push the plunger again.
let him float around in the toilet for a while.
gulp.
12. hdgreene
After reading Ms. Seabrook, I think maybe one nuke isn’t enough. If it was set off on the mall, there would be too many survivors. After all there is no point in setting off just one roach bomb. You need one in every room to do a complete job.
I forget the name of the Hotel on Connecticut across from the main entrance to the Zoo but that is where Congress would go for nooners. You would have to make sure that was within the 50% kill zone. I would hate to miss a congress critter because he was boffing his secetrary or a White House page.
It’s not astonishing. Not after living in California for 46 of my 54 years, including the last 27. Almost total cluelessness along with a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude towards utopia is a deadly combination.
am @ 18: Obama was the perfect package to hang the aspirations of a party upon. Obama, a clean and articulate black man, …
And with an Islamic name! He put it RIGHT IN YOUR FACE that embracing him gave you great karmic credit.
Of course, this has served him well for decades, even if he never, ever had any real accomplishments to back it up. He even got a Nobel Prize!
After electing that, we deserved anything we got.
And now, he’s running for reelection on the platform that he hates roughly 80% of the electorate, basically all those who pay taxes, but they should feel guilty for his hate and vote for him anyway, or at least be quiet about it.
The reason “espionage trials are rare [is] because there’s a danger the accused will spill even more secrets during the court proceedings — a defence tactic known as ‘greymail,’ said Craig Forcese”
Oh. I suppose that could work. It also helps if the breach is flattering rather than libelous.
10. Charles – Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
True. The founders were occultists, and their subjects good moral people. Who knew that today’s unprincipled slobs would be easier governed by other means.
James Hansen and Eliot Spitzer say carbon-emitters should pay up.
Climate scientist extraordinaire James Hansen has the solution to climate change.
It’s a tax, of course – a carbon tax. Paid by carbon-emitting companies, and not to the government but “distributed to the public.”
As Hansen told Eliot Spitzer,
“If we would just make fossil fuels pay for their true cost to society, we could begin to move to different energies and energy efficiency.”
Sure, no problem. After all, we make lots of things “pay their true cost to society,” don’t we? Let’s see, there’s…no, wait, how about…OK, here’s an example…no, never mind.
Let’s first note that a huge swath of America, together with the political movement that caters to it, doesn’t believe in “society.” But even if we get all nostalgic and take as a given the existence of a “common good,” paying for our “true cost” just isn’t in our DNA as Americans…
…If we’re going to rely on the idea of people or institutions paying their “true cost” for what they consume – consume economically or otherwise – we’ll fall flat on our faces.
And from that position it’s hard to do certain things – like, oh, I don’t know – preserve the Earth as we know it for future generations?
—
The Sky is falling!
The Sky is falling!
Hansen tells Spitzer it’s even worse than we thought:
Fires, Hurricanes, Earthquakes!
(Spitzer: Unchallengeable Scientific Observations)!
(Haven’t had any out here in Paradise to speak of since ’93!)
Guam had some really rough years one after the other around then and has
also been relatively serene, since.
Hansen One-Ups Gore’s “Earth has a temperature”
with a giant pair of loaded dice.
…and predicts mass species extinction of 50%!
Glad Spitzer is still on his campaign for truth.
…and such a charmer!
Sidenote:
After Iniki devastated Kauai in 1992, a special Hurricane Relief Fund was set up which homeowners paid into via a tax for that purpose.
Fund built up over the years, but one of New Governor Neil Abercrombie’s first acts to “balance” his budget was to raid the fund!
The more things change…
after President Obama demanded that Romney release his tax returns. “Perhaps it’s time Romney asked to see his college records.”
What Romney ought to say when Dems demand his tax returns is “I’ll release my tax returns when Obama releases his budget. We haven’t had a Federal budget since he took office. I was going to suggest he should release his college records, but frankly, a man’s college transcript is only useful when you’re first interviewing him. After he’s been on the job for four years, you can judge him on his job performance.”
Annoy Mouse:
You can’t con an honest man.
Langley @20
“No – democracy is getting too strong in America.”
You might want to look at Polybius’ ideas regarding kyklos
“Clinton made people feel comfortable with their sins. Obama told them sins were virtues.”
A pretty turn of phrase but true of all politicians, de facto.
“What is truly astonishing is how this very strange man rose so far and so fast in the Democratic Party.”
Not really astonishing.
Look at the leftists you know.
Oh, look! Something shiny.
Wretchard wrote:
“He told them what they wanted to hear; that they were special; that failure did not matter if could be concealed.”
Well done, sir. You have identified the attraction to a vast swath of the left.
While the biggest chunk of those voting Dem certainly is those who get a regular check from the government and vote to avoid the anxiety about whether or not it will keep arriving, another big sop – the most important one for the insecure pseudointellectual wing of the party (which is vast and deep) – is the permission the left gives to mediocre minds to consider themselves super bright, super articulate, and possesed of powers of godlike analytical capability if they merely parrot the party line. It explains much of NPR’s appeal to these types – vain educators who couldn’t succeed in any other field, especially if it were the private sector, public sector lifers who cannot understand why they haven’t made the money and don’t have the cachet of the wealthier private sector neighbors, serial failures at private sector jobs, etc., – who can listen, at taxpayer expense to a legitimate sounding “information” stream that never reports anything bad about their political heroes or their policy and reinforces the lies about the excellence of the same daily.
The Dems and expecially Obama knew this audience well and comments like “we are the people we have been waiting for”, solipsistic and silly and illogical though they might be, resonated hugely with this crowd. He wasn’t saying aything they haven’t wanted to be told their whole lives, even if what they were being told was factually incorrect. A president who voiced their denial of the facts and assuaged their insecurities, whose very position legitimized (in their minds) their anti-reality assumptions about their importance and brains relative to their neighbors? A president who validated their edifice that a guy who worked hard and built up a business didn’t deserve to have more money and status than they did because they were really the “smart” people and the entrepreneur was not, so therefore a market economy must be bad bacause another system that paid public school teachers and professor more than anyone else relfected the “real” value of people’s labor?
How could they NOT be taken in? How could they NOT vote for him, swooning?
Obama is strange. Most politicians are very good salesmen. Even if they are ignorant arrogant and rude, even if you disagree with everything they stand for, if you meet them you come away impressed by their interest in you. A good salesman is Other Directed. At the extreme end even a psychotic focuses on their victim and works to manipulate them. People who met Hitler spoke after about how courteous and charming he was. Bill Clinton can literally charm the pants off of people.
Obama is different. It is all about him. He has a few threadbare verbal tricks and can read a prepared speech. At an early age he learned how to use fear and guilt to prevent white people from controlling him. Some people support him because they share his hate objects. Beyond that he brings nothing to the table.
In the 1990’s I said that Bill Clinton was the Ultimate Liberal, and that he would destroy Liberalism. Finally a Liberal had arisen that would not even embrace Liberalism, since a key tenet of the belief was that everything was relative, and therefore jettisonable – even Liberalism itself.
Feminism was destroyed by Clinton’s abuse of women. The Anti-War Left was destroyed by Clinton’s feckless military adventurism. The Race Card was played and played, until the pasteboards were falling apart, and then Clinton signed Welfare Reform. Great and soaring speeches were presented by Clinton – like the one promising to start a program to reduce the power of tornadoes – and never mind that no such program was ever started or even contemplated – the thought was what counted.
People who had once said so loudly, “The personal is the political.” had to realize that all they had left was political that was personally important to them.
Into this dying life-form came the opportunistic infection known as Obama. The soaring rhetoric returned, and in many ways Obama was saying it was Okay to have nothing but a bag of special interests that you carried around in a bag you called Liberalism. He made their lack of principles, loss of ideology, acceptable, and even a good thing.
@ 24. exhelodrvr
This article:
Even Worse Than California
Claims that British Columbia is worse!
Just to quibble, I think saying that democracy may be weakening is kind of like saying a hammer has become less accurate because it’s being used to break windows rather than pound nails.
The problem here is that the elite live in an alternative universe. It’s not so much that the people themselves have to be that good and moral, but the people at the top at least have to believe in something other than moral and ethical relativism.
Say what you will about Republican ineptitude and corruption, at least it’s just good, old fashioned ineptitude and corruption. The elites and their media mouthpiece and political party, on the other hand, believe that down can be up and wrong can be right if you wish hard enough and click your heels together.
It’s all Rousseau’s fault, but part of this has to do with the success of science. Our ability to understand and manipulate stuff has seduced the unwitting into assuming that the domain of science, the material realm, is all there is.
It may well be true that that there are way more of us than we realize who have purchase in the broader reality. If not, we’re really in trouble, even though we’re in a heap of trouble no matter what.
My theory is a version of Catch-22.
Noboody with a pathologic personality should be qualified to be President of the United States.
Nobody would want to be President of the United States unless they had a pathologic personality.
Therefore nobody is qualified to be President.
I think it was a shame that the Republicans picked the sensible candidate this time around. I was in favor of Newt because I thought his particular flavor of pathology could outshine Obamas.
Funny that Wretchard brings up Looney Tunes although I had to cringe when I read the bit about Daffy Duck vs Donald Duck which is of course impossible. It would be Daffy vs Bugs, Elmer or Porkey but never a Disney character.
The reference did remind me that many cartoons featuring violence were censored by the networks in the 90′s along with some showing racial stereotypes. It was a typical PC lefty “we know best” thing to do. It came to light in an interview that Cartoon Network had stopped showing Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Speedy Gonzales “The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico” because they thought he was a negative stereotype. The network recieved a huge backlash from Hispanic groups who demanded that the ban be lifted. Turns out Speedy is hugely popular in Mexico and Latin America. After all he is fast, smarter that the cat, and always gets the cheese.
I support Langley @ 20 regarding this. We have been indoctrinated to believe that “democracy, democracy, that’s what the world needs. It’s vonderful. Just take it out of the box, and pull the starting cord. It will purr along marvelously.”
Well, it will until it won’t. We are first fruits of the ultimate consequence of arrival at the critical point of governance by median mentality. Democracy will always arrive at the point of tyranny of the majority where the loot of the wealthy minority is plundered by the remainder.
Democracy only works as long as there is an underlying substrate of respect for personal property and a strong moral framework. In our case, that framework was Christianity.
It has been steadfastly eroded. The supporting fabric of our freedom is weakened to the point of rupture.
Our dithering at the helm is indicative of inability of either pole to gain ascendancy in the resolve of public opinion.
Having been established as a Constitutional Republic, we are at risk of allowing democracy to turn the wheel toward social collectivism, and away from individual responsibility and liberty.
Democracy looks good on paper, but incorporates the seeds of destruction of liberty in favor of socializing the cost while personalizing the gain. Everybody gets free stuff, while the wealthy will pay for all of it.
mm @ 36: It’s all Rousseau’s fault, but part of this has to do with the success of science. Our ability to understand and manipulate stuff has seduced the unwitting into assuming that the domain of science, the material realm, is all there is.
I think that overstates it a bit, this being a favorite topic of mine, and what happens is that there grows up an aesthetic if you will that science is certainty, and thus all things, all people’s judgements, should be equally certain and objective, that even matters of truth and beauty are as much matters of right and wrong as is the chemical composition of water. It’s not that the whole world is water, there is still truth and beauty, but now we expect them to *behave*. Of course this is hardly my own invention, you can see much of this at work in C.S. Lewis, “That Hideous Strength”, especially Lewis has even Merlin trying to make the world BEHAVE by coercion rather than by understanding. It turned out Merlin was a good guy after all and that these issues can be subtle, can seem subtle, and yet there “really” is a right aesthetic and it is not the coercive one.
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bftp @ 33: Obama is different. It is all about him. He has a few threadbare verbal tricks and can read a prepared speech. At an early age he learned how to use fear and guilt to prevent white people from controlling him. Some people support him because they share his hate objects. Beyond that he brings nothing to the table.
Yes. Also spindok, rwe. For me, something happened to our politics during the Clinton follies. As all of his foolishness came to light, I assumed both parties would react with amusement and disgust, impeach him and remove him from office, fumigate the office and move on. Did not happen that way. Not only did they support Clinton, but they did so with the Minute Of Hate for Mr. Republican, from whom Clinton was protecting us as Big Brother. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? I had never felt these currents of politics before in real life rather than literature. Perhaps I was blind?
And now comes Obambus The Magnificent. The entire skepticism gene seems to turn off in 51% of our population when he walks in the room. What the heck is it with that? Or perhaps they don’t see him at all, he said himself that people treated him like a Rorschach blot, like not-the-other. Geez, what can a fellow say but, good work if you can get it!
spindok @ 37 said:
“Noboody with a pathologic personality should be qualified to be President of the United States. Nobody would want to be President of the United States unless they had a pathologic personality. Therefore nobody is qualified to be President.”
That is a Douglas Adams concept that he presented in the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. Adams’ solution to this dilemma was to have a hopeless narcissist named “Zaphod Beeblebrox” elected as pseudo-President. This elected pseudo-President had no actual political power and his only real function was to strut around in front of the entertainment media and make an ass out of himself. While this distraction was going on, a secret clique appointed the real President who was a solipsist living by himself with his cat on an obscure planet. This solipsist spent the day wondering whether or not he actually existed. The secret clique would come to the solipsist with policy decisions knowing that any decision he made would be totally objective. This was typical Doug Adams stuff, i.e 2nd year undergraduate philosophy mixed with comic absurdity.
Spindok said:
“I think it was a shame that the Republicans picked the sensible candidate this time around. I was in favor of Newt because I thought his particular flavor of pathology could outshine Obamas.”
I was also rooting for Newt but knew he didn’t have a prayer because he was carrying too much baggage (he is pathological). It would have been gratifying watching Newt dance circles around Obama. I disagree that Romney was the sensible candidate. IMHO, Romney will win only if the economy tanks. This situation is a disgrace because Obama is a catastrophic President and needs to be removed from office.
Spindok also said:
“The reference did remind me that many cartoons featuring violence were censored by the networks in the 90′s along with some showing racial stereotypes. It was a typical PC lefty “we know best” thing to do. It came to light in an interview that Cartoon Network had stopped showing Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Speedy Gonzales “The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico” because they thought he was a negative stereotype.”
What they were doing with Warner Brothers cartoons in the 90′s was vandalism. They were editing out all of the cartoon violence such that the discontinuities made the cartoon seem even more incoherent. I’ve bought DVD collections with most of the original unedited Warner Brothers cartoons. My kids and I have enjoyed them. It’s disturbing how much memory space in my brain that is occupied by Warner Brothers cartoons. I have gone through several gigabytes of these old cartoons and it only takes a few seconds of watching a cartoon before I remember it from seeing it as a kid. Many of these cartoons are over 60 years old but they’re still fresh and bright (they never grow old).
Of course, Speedy Gonzales is not a negative stereotype against Mexicans. Speedy is always making a complete fool out of Sylvester who represents an American gringo (Speedy calls him a “gringo”). The opposition to Speedy Gonzales was PC stupidity at its worst.
Buy the Warner Brothers DVDs and let your kids enjoy them. There’s no good reason not to allow children to enjoy these wonderful cartoons.
20. Langley
No – democracy is getting too strong in America.
Agreed. The more “democracy” we get, the less free we seem to be.
Far be it from me to disagree with C.S. Lewis, Josh, but I do think that you will find, in this day and age, many people who think that the only kind of legitimate reasoning is scientific reasoning and that the only way to prove something is by way of the scientific method.
Perhaps this only serves to underscore your point, but I think it puts many folks into the position of thinking everything is a nail because they can wield a hammer.
Spindok @ 37
While enjoying my liberal arts education in early 70′s, I had a chance to take a class entitled “Art of the Animated Film” at UC Santa Cruz. We had great honor to get a visit from Chuck Jones, father to many of Loony Tunes greatest hits. During Q&A, a flannel wearing granola babe (yes they were easily recognizable), asked him about “violent roles his cartoons portrayed”. A large auditorium full of undergrads erupted in boos and hisses. When commotion died down, Chuck Jones said: “Lady, all we wanted to do was make people laugh. We took slapstick like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Three Stooges, and took it to extreme limits available to us in cartoons, just to make people briefly forget their troubles and have a good belly laugh.” Place exploded into a standing ovation.
35. Doug
Here in BC (British Columbia) we are about to have a close encounter with the Great God of Arithmetic. Our current oil rent seeking ROCINO (right of centre in name only) Premier Christie Clarke will almost certainly get bounced at the Provincial Election next May. If she is replaced it will be by a NDP (flamingly socialist) Provincial government whose far left leader reads books with titles like “Buddhist Economics”.
So Provincially, BC will be Obamacised. The only good part is that the ROCINO and her party will probably be lost in a structural re-organization of the political right in our Province. After about four years out of power, this should eventually produce a new conservative Party.
As soon as he takes to the stage, the Buddhist Economist elected to replace the ROCINO lady will be punched in the mouth by the God of Arithmetic. Common sense might re-appear in four or five years from now (we have fixed four year terms for the Provincial Government in BC).
If this was not enough misery and tomfoolery, the Hockey season will be postponed and shortened because of an upcoming lockout of players by owners. A new agreement is being negotiated between NHL owners and players.
Our only hope is to get heavy snow on the ski-hills this winter. There at least, we can go downhill in style.
in this day and age, many people who think that the only kind of legitimate reasoning is scientific reasoning and that the only way to prove something is by way of the scientific method.
Well, no, not really. That may have been true with secularists in the recent past, but now they’ve abandoned the requirement for a true scientific method.
Just go to “LiveScience” to see how many fraudulent “studies” are touted for the stupid and the gullible.
Obama is the Mule as portrayed by Issac Asimov in Foundation and Empire. The Mule was a Charismatic Mutant that could compel loyalty. The Psychohistory of Hari Seldon failed to predict the the rise of the Mule which almost caused the end of the foundation.
The point of the hockey stick, by the way, was to bypass a mathematical fact, namely the fact that you can’t tell a cycle from a trend with data short compared to the cycle you want to exclude.
If it’s a cycle, it’s not man-caused; and the history of earth is a series of long climate cycles.
The hockey stick gave explosive growth in temperature, and explosive growth can’t be a cycle.
Since the hockey stick is dead, we’re back at no data supporting AGW.
“Now, in contrast, you’ve got Governor Romney creating as a centerpiece of his campaign this notion that we’re taking work requirement out of welfare. Which every single person here who’s looked at it says, it’s patently false…
“Everybody who’s looked at this says what Governor Romney is saying is absolutely wrong.”
This is another lie, the “everybody says” claim. Dick Morris and Robert Rector swear to the contrary. My working rule is that everything Obama and Progressives say should be presumed false until further vetted. In fact…triumphal horn roll…by now this rule has surely become a Law of Nature!
But another such Law as observed by Mogli in The Jungle Book movie: “The monkeys know it is true [that they are the greatest and wisest beasts in the Jungle] because they always say it is true.” Wiggle, wiggle…
mm @ 42: Perhaps this only serves to underscore your point, but I think it puts many folks into the position of thinking everything is a nail because they can wield a hammer.
Or at least that’s a claim they can make and get many suckers to believe it. Have you read the book? I’m sure I don’t do it justice – and it is a hoot to read, as long as you can deal with the period piece. The science of Belbury turned out to be a flimsy front for the worst and transcendental evil.
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Back on Earth, a financial writer questions the wisdom of Romney using Staples as his economic model:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48777322
While it was a great concept in its day, succeeding at the expense of wiping out local mom-and-pop outfits, the big-box office store concept appears to have run its course. The good news: Staples has outperformed Office Depot and OfficeMax. The bad: On almost every key metric it appears to be falling apart and struggling to find its way as competition from the likes of Amazon.com, and the demise of the personal computer industry, take their toll. Sales and earnings growth have turned negative in a significant way, but more disconcerting: Once a big generator of cash flow, Staples is now barely eking it out as it struggles to stay cash flow positive. Sounds a lot like America these days. Maybe it wasn’t a bad metaphor, after all.
maineman @ 42 said:
“… in this day and age, many people who think that the only kind of legitimate reasoning is scientific reasoning and that the only way to prove something is by way of the scientific method.”
My inclination is towards that sort of reasoning. However the first problem with it is most real world systems are chaotic and not susceptible to valid mathematical models, e.g. real world economics. Ultimately, the free market wins over centrally planned socialist systems because the free market people do not pretend they can actually control things and just “go with the flow”. The second problem is even with simple systems, there are usually multiple mathematically correct solutions and each solution has a Gaussian distribution wrapped around it due to unknown initial conditions. Consequently even with a perfect model, one still needs to make a value judgment concerning which solution is optimal, i.e. a parameter of merit that is optimized. As part of my work, I’ve been playing with the guidance and control law used by the Apollo Command Module (CM) during reentry from lunar return. An interesting part of the guidance law is this notion of “dead band”. A “dead band” is a region in the solution space where the best decision is to do nothing. For a spacecraft reentry system, this was a vital decision strategy because an engineer does not want the spacecraft blasting out limited control propellant on squirrelly maneuvers that have no significant consequence towards the spacecraft’s desired destination. It’s important to know when to do nothing.
Katana @ 46 said:
“Obama is the Mule as portrayed by Issac Asimov in Foundation and Empire. The Mule was a Charismatic Mutant that could compel loyalty. The Psychohistory of Hari Seldon failed to predict the the rise of the Mule which almost caused the end of the foundation.”
That is an interesting analogy. I’m inclined to agree that Obama is like a charismatic mutant that compels loyalty (like Saruman seducing people with his voice). Where I disagree with the analogy concerns Hari Seldon’s inability to predict Obama. I believe the rise of a demagogue like Obama was highly predictable. I was groaning in dismay when Obama first appeared and it was clear that he had fully seduced the moonbats in the MSM. It still amazes me that they were so stupid. Haven’t they read any history at all? Have they every heard of Father Coughlin, Hitler or Alcibiades? Obama practically had a neon sign over him flashing “demagogue”. The fools in the MSM were asleep at the switch.
maineman @ 36 – It’s all Rousseau’s fault, but part of this has to do with the success of science. Our ability to understand and manipulate stuff has seduced the unwitting into assuming that the domain of science, the material realm, is all there is.
We have models, but observation indicates that the models do not adequately describe the behavior. Convinced the models are correct, we are forced to conclude that there is something that we cannot detect. “Dark matter” and “dark energy” arise.
Next thing you know, skeptics will admit that there are constructs out there that cannot be observed and measured. This is a result of the nature of our observations which necessarily depend on e-m radiation. Most of our knowledge of the universe is a consequence of e-m measurement. Of course, there are particle interactions, which we also detect by e-m radiation.
The soul is another such concept. Believers have one, just like unbelievers. It is eternal and bears responsibility for self-determination or volition.
Whence cometh this soul? Was it contained in the spermatozoa or ovum or neither? Yet, we know it is required for thought processes, such as decision making required for exercise of volition. Therefore, the process of thinking is not entirely constituted by organic chemistry of the physical brain.
In the interesting fossil record, you do not have a human if it did not carry a soul.
epignosis @ 51 said:
“The soul is another such concept. Believers have one, just like unbelievers. It is eternal and bears responsibility for self-determination or volition. Whence cometh this soul?”
Uh let’s see… How about from 10^12 neurons each with 10^3 synapses, i.e. the equivalent of a computer with 10^15 transistors.
The concept of the soul is a nice little sugar coating that helps use deal with grandma passing away. It also helps us from going nuts when we wake up in the middle of the night and remember that our own death is inescapable. The soul is the friendly teddy bear that we can cling to while faced with a harsh and uncaring universe.
I’m not succeeding on getting play on either of today’s comments. Heck, I thought I was “on to something”.
Next thought arises. If the soul is not in spermatozoa or ovum, it cannot be a result of the fertilization either, because it is not separable or divisible. Your soul cannot go to both heaven and hell, so to speak.
Maybe this relates to the discussion with Nicodemus. “Flesh begets flesh and spirit begets spirit”. This would be alarming, since you would then have to determine when the “breath of life” is endued in the fetus. When there are two cells? Four? At the time of birth? What then is in the womb if it contains no soul?
Eggplant, You conclude that there can be nothing except what is detectable by e-m radiation through physical examination. Therefore we must also reject dark matter. We cannot seem to detect it either.
Therein lies the crucial issue. Can there exist something that is not detectable by empirical processes or rationalization (induction & deduction)?
I’ve never seen transistors, in any amount, that had knowledge of good and evil.
e @ 54: Therein lies the crucial issue. Can there exist something that is not detectable by empirical processes or rationalization (induction & deduction)?
Qualia.
Sigh.
Still, for me, the answer to your question is, no. Can we detect pair-ness in the individual components? Can we describe water by induction from hydrogen and oxygen? I take it all to be issues of a mereological nature. As long as you’re asking! So that things must be seen by “empirical” processes, but even some very common observations are constructivist, not induction or deduction. IOW even our most basic scientific framework, is still not fleshed out.
epignosis @ 54 said:
“You conclude that there can be nothing except what is detectable by e-m radiation through physical examination. Therefore we must also reject dark matter. We cannot seem to detect it either.”
I suspect “dark matter” is a scientific dustbin that people sweep things into that they do not understand. For the longest while people thought the “Pioneer Anomaly” was due to dark matter. Then someone did the math and demonstrated that the “Pioneer Anomaly” was due to Pioneer-10 having hot radioactive thermal generators, i.e. a totally boring and prosaic explanation.
The universe is a very elegant clockwork and might even be an artifact. I’m uncomfortable sitting on the fence of agnosticism, sometimes lean towards deism but jerk back towards atheism. I’m familiar with most of the 2nd year undergraduate philosophical arguments (wasted too much time engaging in that sort of sophistry). I’ll have a better understanding about the “truth” a few seconds after I have died. Hopefully I won’t find myself pulling off a virtual reality helmet and badly in need of a bath.
I think the folks from Wisconsin, like Gov Walker, Priebus, and Ryan, far from being pathological personalities, actually care about the future of the nation.
Quite a dilemma for introspection. Are we more than the sum of chemical constituents? One on hand, the postulate that we are just very clever apes, evolved to some pinnacle of mental agility. On the other, that we are constructed of flesh and soul, generated by an eternal spirit.
How to discern? Is our science, based as it is on empricisim and rationalism, up to the task? Can there exits constructs, such as soul and spirit, that are unfathomable by processes accessible to mankind?
In deciding what to believe, we are free to exercise our volition. The apes are not.
It seems to me the government has been trying to build itself up by siting a higher humanistic purpose. Maybe starting with social security and federal taxes but certainly going off the constitutional reservation with welfare and Medicare. Their latest repudiation of constitutional rule started when the hated republican created the EPA which has in effect subordinated the rights of individuals to the rights of mother Gaia.
This usurpation of individual rights has been further enhanced with global treaties and an adherence to international pressures. The rights of an individual has become subordinated altogether by the notion that Americans are all together net users of the earth’s resources and as such must be reined in and controlled to accord with Kyoto and other misanthropy. The notion that the individual in the US must be restrained from using more than its fair share of the world’s resources is not even thinly veiled but sited by government officials high and low as to why the US citizen must not be allowed to go about their business unaffiliated or unencumbered.
No mention of the efficiencies and environmentally friendly technologies that were given birth by same said individuals. US citizens have contributed more to reducing environmental toxins than any other dirt-dwelling tribe on the planet.
Individuals no longer have sway with the US political class. So how can this be? Willie Sutton may have said “Banks and major corporations are where the gold is”. Why pan for dust when you can melt down mountains for raw ore? Individual rights are dead in America and that is the way dictators like it.
Eggplant @ 56 – For the longest while people thought the “Pioneer Anomaly” was due to dark matter. Then someone did the math and demonstrated that the “Pioneer Anomaly” was due to Pioneer-10 having hot radioactive thermal generators, i.e. a totally boring and prosaic explanation.
See also the IEEE paper by Y. Mesfin that describes the investigation of the phantom torque disturbance during Russian EVA from ISS. The disturbance was sufficient to cause saturation of the Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs) during long EVAs. It was determined to be a result of sublimation from the ice-packs on the back of the RS EVA suits.
We often have difficulties perceiving the effects of such things when relatively small scale factors are at play. In micro-gravity environment, sublimating ice is the largest source of momentum.
You may want to take a look at the Google Site in the search for ‘oscillations of spin motor current in an ISS CMG’, if you have a technical thirst.
In such cases, people will cast about for explanations, until someone does the intense labor of calculations and analysis.
Spindok 37: Daffy Duck did indeed battle Donald Duck in “Who framed Roger Rabbit” with dueling pianos, ending with a canon shot from within the piano. Great movie in the old cartoon tradition.
epignosis @ 60,
Another weird physical observation is the “flyby anomaly”, refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyby_anomaly
Once again, dark matter is trotted out as a possible explanation. My own guess is there are some higher order terms in Einstein’s field equations that we don’t understand. The flyby anomaly might also have an uninteresting prosaic explanation. It would be fun to see something that actually shook up the established order with physics and NOT be explained as another manifestation of dark energy/matter (boring!).
61.Kohalus
Thanks for that link. Forgot about that. I think Daffy as always got set up. Never saw that cannon under the piano coming.
RWE@34, spindok@37:
Also, the Dems were in a hurry to elect the first black president before the Reps did it. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice scared them, and there are several sharp young black Reps.
So, they took the most likely black guy in the party. Obama was the best they had, in their estimation.
Ann Coulter: “Our blacks are so much better than their blacks.”
RWE@34, spindok@37:
Also, the Dems were in a hurry to elect the first black president before the Reps did it. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice scared them, and there are plenty of sharp young black Republicans.
So, they took the most likely black guy in the party. Obama (untainted by executive, military, or business experience) was the best they had, in their estimation.
Ann Coulter: “Our blacks are so much better than their blacks.”