It’s Perry Day in America: Wake Up and Smell The Idiocy Already Hurled at Him
No sooner had the sun risen on the day that Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his candidacy for President, than—right on schedule— The Daily Beast, amply living up to its name, posted my personal nominee for Stupidest Column of the Week (deeming Saturday the final day of the past week, thus the competition includes everything written since Sunday.) I’ve never met Michael Tomasky, its author, and have barely noticed his existence until a friend emailed me his post of this morning. But if this column was my introduction to him, and it was, I’m not reading another by him. This one was idiotic enough. Why read more?
Then why read this? Because it will give you an intimate peak into the mindset of the oh-so-urban, self-deluded, self-described “sophisticates” who cannot help but drip condescension when describing a…Republican, especially….a Republican governor… from Texas. It is just too, too much for the poor dears. They’re smelling W in the water. They’re intellectually unable to discern the distinction between a hard-scrabble Aggie and a patrician Yalie with a Harvard business degree. Both W and Perry served as governors of Texas, they’re both devout Christians, they both salute the flag. Therefore, to Mr. Tomasky, they are one and the same candidate. This is why I call Tomasky’s column the Stupidest of the Week.
Surely, you jest, Belladonna, you may be thinking. Think again. For your reading pleasure, I hereby post Mr. Tomasky’s withering (and withered) take on Gov. Perry and his horror of all that he perceives. I’ll also supply my own responses, cleaned up for family reading of this beyond-absurd, grating piece of writing.
Mr. Tomasky, you don’t have a clue about the kinds of people to whom Gov. Perry appeals. This is what comes of living and breathing in a liberal bubble. It never dawns on you that Ivy League-educated people with all manner of higher degrees, for whatever those degrees are worth, are extremely happy that Gov. Perry is set to announce today. Sorry, but many Perry-supporters were born and raised and and were highly educated in those same cosmopolitan centers of Eastern snobbery with which you associate your candidate. We proudly associate ourselves with every flag-saluting, Bible-reading, Texan, mid-Western, Southwestern, Western, Pennsylvanian, Southeastern, Appalachian, Iowan, Northern Plains, Wyoming voter for whom today is a great day in our country’s history. Don’t for a moment think we’re all the same. Far from it. We come in all colors, all religions, all imaginable backgrounds, and we’re—to quote the ebullient late Hubert H. Humphrey— pleased as punch that Perry is in the race.
Mr. Tomasky’s column is in regular type, while my comments are in bold type. He is fearful of a horrific culture clash if Gov. Perry wins the Republican nomination. I say, in the immortal words of President George W. Bush, “Bring it on.” I’d also like to quote then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when, before the onset of the Falklands War, she told Mr. Bush’s father, “Don’t go wobbly on me, George.” There is nothing to fear about a culture clash but the loss of it by Mr. Tomasky’s candidate. The nerve of the Republicans even to contemplate nominating someone who would challenge the perfect world view of Barack Obama. Here it is:
Headine:
Rick Perry: Red-State Warrior [Even in the headline, The Daily Beast is gunning for Gov. Perry with the word, "warrior." Democrats don't like "warriors" because warriors make...war. This is a big no-no for Dems. They'd rather "engage" as candidate Obama promised he'd do with, of all the unengageable , nuclear-arms-building, Holocaust-denying thugs, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And, of course, "Red State" is lib-talk for Clueless Idiots in the Flyover.]
Sub-headline:
Rick Perry and Barack Obama disagree about policy. But as Michael Tomasky argues, a race between them would end up as the biggest battle yet in the culture war. [Awwww. How sad that anyone would want to spoil everything by challenging Obama's cultural perspective. It could get so unpleasant. Can't we all just get along? Can't we all just accept Obama's wonderful world view and not get into schoolyard scraps over whose cultural perspective is more congenial for the majority of actual American citizens? Do we have to hear about other points of view?]
by Michael Tomasky | August 13, 2011 6:25 PM EDT [Typo alert: it was posted at 6:25 AM EDT. That's how I could read it on the morning of August 13, 2011]
So in comes Rick Perry. He will surely be an instant co-frontrunner along with Mitt Romney. In fact I would argue, and will one paragraph down, that he’s basically the instant frontrunner. So for the sake of argument, let’s go ahead and think about a Perry-Obama race. Such a race would be about, yes, the economy first and foremost, and deficits and health care and all the rest. But an Obama-Perry race would be something else, too: a war between the two Americas, each side represented by its respective cultural standard-bearer, each side’s foot soldiers absolutely smoldering with contempt for everything the other guy stands for and indeed the way he looks.[Hey, hold it right there, Tomasky. "indeed the way he looks?" Is this a not-so-subtle suggestion that Republicans are racists? If so, how do you explain the Hermanator, Herman Cain of Atlanta, businessman and as clearly on the stage on Thursday night on Fox as Tim Pawlenty or Michele Bachmann. Readers: as you read this article, you'll see who is complaining about the way a candidate "looks." That would be the author, Michael Tomasky.] We’ve never quite had that before [Gee, I seem to remember a character named William Jennings Bryan who, in 1896 and again in 1900, lost to William McKinley in highly contentious cultural wars. The nation survived, and prospered], not in this way, so it’s worth thinking about.
First, I think Perry becomes the frontrunner, even ahead of Mitt Romney, for three main reasons. No. 1, he fires up large chunks of the base in a way Romney does not. Romney has “default candidate” written all over him, but evangelicals and other hard-shell conservatives are never going to love a Massachusetts Mormon. They’ll love Perry. No. 2, Perry can quickly become the “establishment” candidate because the establishment of today’s GOP is not based on Wall Street or the heartland [this is not factual; it is what's called in courtrooms, "speculation based on facts not in evidence." They're not in evidence because they're not facts. This is a perfect example of a liberal bromide---and a liberal wish. Wishes aren't facts.] but in Texas—Karl Rove, the oilmen, the various billionaires who prime those GOP pumps. No. 3 is speculation rather than fact, but I believe Perry will demonstrate pretty quickly that he’s a better campaigner than Romney. It won’t be hard.
It will take some time, probably, for the polls to reflect all this, but they will. Republicans don’t want a posh, well-spoken Yankee [What? No fact-checkers over at The Daily Beast? Mitt Romney was born and raised in Michigan, not as far as I know part of the Northeast. His father was governor of Michigan and Mitt grew up in Bloomfield, Michigan. No one from Michigan, no matter how long they live in New England, is a Yankee. And he's not "posh." He's rich. There's a difference.] who works at a place with a name like Bain Capital. In their deepest souls, they want a Texas governor. [Oh? Then how come Romney and Michele Bachmann have been the frontrunners when neither has been a governor of Texas?] They want a shit-kicker. [Given what's been emanating from the Oval Office since January 20, 2009, wouldn't anyone want that BS cleared out? How much of it are Americans expected to swallow, Mike?] And here, we circle back to culture.
When my friends and I looked at George W. Bush in 1999, we shuddered like people who’d turned a street corner and stumbled across a dog’s corpse. We knew and had contempt for his beliefs ["contempt for his beliefs"---there you have it, direct from a liberal horse's mouth], but it had nothing to do with them, really. It was just the way he presented himself. That puffed-out chest.[Now we're seeing an attack on a person because of the way "he looks"---and not looks in reality, but how he looks to a self-admitted contemptuous liberal] That self-satisfied smirk. [What "self-satisfied smirk? I have two eyes which, when corrected with my glasses, give me 20/20 vision and for the life of me, I see no smirk whatsoever on Gov. Perry's face. A smile, yes, but why not? He's presided over the greatest new jobs creation strategy in the country. He has every reason to smile. Smile on, Gov. Perry!] All that Jesus talk—even in the event that it was sincere, which we never quite bought, [like you have X-ray vision into the soul of a man whose religion enabled him to kick alcoholism? "we never quite bought"---you should be ashamed of yourselves, you and your "friends". But you had no problem with "Reverend" Wright and his "God damn America"? That was fine with you? 
That was hunky-dory with you.] it was to a liberal deeply inappropriate to haul it into the public square like that. He represented Southern country clubs and Dodge Durangos and Browning bolt-actions and homes with no books in them (putting Laura to the side, since she wasn’t the candidate). [As one of the great lines in "Annie Hall" put it, "I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype."] 
He was the kind of man who, if I ran into him at a hospitality tent at a tailgate party, I’d make an effort to avoid. Liberals just couldn’t stand the sight of the guy.[Poor, poor liberals. He wasn't one of them! How painful to have to endure a President who isn't a mirror image of yourself. How I feel your pain. Listen up, Tomasky, no woman in America has ever looked in the Oval Office and seen a mirror image of herself, and if Hillary had been elected, we still wouldn't have. Grow up. Get used to it. This is a wonderfully diverse, multi-cultural, multi-educated, big, big, big country. There are going to be people elected President with whom you wouldn't want to have a drink. Man up. There was a time when "Liberal" meant tolerant. By your own bigoted words, you've outed yourself as a provincial rube who's delighted with someone with a Columbia and Harvard Law degree who doesn't have a shred of executive ability but just looking at him makes you soooo proud of yourself. A Texas governor is beneath your contempt. You probably think only people just like you read your column. Surprise! The Internet makes your prejudices available for all to see and be sickened by.] And that was before he ruined the country.
I understand that conservatives feel similarly about Obama. They look at him and see wine-and-cheese parties where people have jazz playing in the background and where talk turns to the merits and demerits of Jonathan Franzen [owned, exclusively by the Left?], who drive Priuses (or is it Prii?) [Clever, Mike! You must have gotten A's in Latin. Good for you!] and buy espresso machines [like conservatives are legally barred from owning them? This will come as a shock to Richard Perle, among millions of others] and live in homes with far too many books in them. [Are you for real? You probably don't read Roger L. Simon or Ron Radosh or Victor Davis Hanson, or, for that matter, me. Roger drives a Prius and has thousands of books in his house, as does Ron Radosh, many of which each of them actually wrote and published--- as do I--- thousands of books, some of which were written by Roger L. Simon and by Allis and Ronald Radosh. We, too, serve wine, and sometimes listen to jazz. You think we all live in Unabomber-type caves? (Unabomber, Harvard Class of '62, of course.) You apparently know no libertarians, Independents or Republicans and have just exposed your ignorance of them for all to see] And worse than that: for much of Red America, Dr. Frankenstein himself could not have stitched together a more perfect Other: urban, urbane, sophisticated ["sophisticated?" Whom do you think you're kidding? Obama is hopelessly, cluelessly provincial and is too conceited to listen to the White House Protocol Office which could have saved him from such embarrassments as hugging H.M. The Queen of England, speaking while the British National Anthem was being played in Buckingham Palace (later "explaining" that he thought it was "just background music, like in a movie.") And of course, he's so sophisticated that he believes the national language of Austria is "Austrian." He's as sophisticated as the rubes you imagine populate the Republican Party.], intellectual [oh, right. All intellectuals consort with domestic terrorists, especially the ones whose only regret is that they didn't kill more police officers than they did. Reference to William Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn, close friends of our intellectual President.] “Black,” of course, may no longer be a deal breaker in this day and age, but it doesn’t help. Many conservatives clearly can’t stand the sight of him. [My dear Mr. Tomasky, Obama could be a green-skinned Martian, born in the USA, for all anyone cares. The problem, sir, is not with the color of his skin but with the content of his character, and of course, the state of our economy, and the complete lack of any plan provided by Obama to Congress to deal with the debt ceiling. The problem is that after all his vaunted campaign promises, none has been kept except health care "reform," which he didn't even write---it was written by Congress. We're now in yet a third war, Libya, which violates the War Powers Act, lacking, as it does, Congressional approval. Mr. "Engagement" just wants to bomb Muammar Gaddafi into the Stone Age. Gaddafi isn't the problem. The aforementioned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the problem. What we can't stand the sight of is not a Black president, it is, rather, the sight of any American president making apology tours around the world and bowing to the Saudi King and the Japanese Emperor, not to mention the Communist Chinese leader.]
Perry, on this scale, is chillingly Bush-like. [They couldn't be more different. Take a look at The Charlie Rose Show of August 12, 2011, and you'll see what I mean. It isn't posted yet, so I can't link to it now.]I saw a clip the other day of him saluting—an off-screen soldier, perhaps, or a flag. It was a small thing.[OMG. Let me get this straight. Mr. Tomasky was offended that a governor of an American state saluted the American flag or a member of the Armed Forces of the United States of America. What more do you need to read before concluding that Mr. Tomasky's is the Stupidest, not to mention Most Provincial Column of the Week?] But he looked exactly like Bush. The chest pumped up with self-regard. The overly aggressive way he thrust his saluting hand out from his forehead. He even, I swear, was smirking. I shuddered all over again. [Mr. Tomasky, there are very effective medications for delusions such as these. I recommend you see your family physician about getting on a regimen of them. If you don't, you risk losing whatever is left of your sanity between August 13, 2011 and November 6, 2012. A mind is a terrible thing to lose, although in your case, I'd make an exception.]
During an Obama-Perry contest, millions of Americans on both sides would be shuddering constantly for four months. [ Note to Mr. Tomasky: at least half the country is shuddering already, many of us since 2007. Apparently, that's OK with you. What you don't want is for your 40% of the country to have to shudder as we've been shuddering. Well, see, this is what a democracy produces: shudders. Some shudders feel good, as when Chris Matthews felt that thrill going up his thigh. But many of our thighs haven't felt that thrill from a Presidential candidate in a long time, and frankly, that is an abysmal basis on which to choose one's candidate, as we can now all (or almost all) see for ourselves. Democracies operate on free elections. Among other things, that means enduring shudders when your side loses, as lose it must.] We’ve never had quite this kind of showdown culturally.[Oh yes, we have. There was one obvious four-year moment that seems to have slipped your mind, known in the North as the Civil War. And then, the 1896 and 1900 elections.] Our present Kulturkampf dates only to the 1980s. [Wrong. How soon you forget, unless you weren't yet born, and even if that's the case, you could read---you know, like an intellectual---the JFK-Nixon Kulturkampf . It couldn't have been more stark.] There’s never been a cultural showdown of the sort Obama v. Perry would represent. Yes, Republicans hated Clinton, but he was Southern and enough of a good old boy that he cut across those lines to some extent [Except for people who weren't crazy about his character. He's still disbarred in his native state. That "good ole boy" number was DOA with a lot of us.] Gore was painted as an egghead [actually, a s***head was the more accurate portrayal, as his recent sexcapades in the Northwest attest], and was, but again Southern-ness [faux-Southern. He grew up in the Fairfax Hotel on Massachusetts Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC] diluted the cocktail a bit. Bush versus John Kerry is probably as close as we’ve come, but Kerry was never really quite threatening enough to Bush America to merit serious hatred [Oh no? He and his consort---meaning Theresa--- inspired well more than 57 varieties of it, and of course, his brilliant selection of Vice Presidential candidate, now under indictment, whom I notice you don't bother to mention also turned tens of millions of stomachs.]. And John McCain, mostly because he was not Southern and partly because he was so old, [you're what? In your teens? McCain was among the bravest commanders in Viet Nam---not on D-Day. He was 72 in 2008. He has white hair. You would, too, if you'd survived the Hanoi Hilton, the grotesque nickname for one of the most despicable, horrifying prison ever fabricated.] was not nearly as perfect a foil for Obama as Perry would be.
I don’t relish this. [Yeah, defeat doesn't taste as nifty as victory, no question about it.] We’re divided enough, thanks. [So the Republicans should choose someone more like...Barack Obama, so as not to emphasize the deep divisions in the country caused by the abject failure of Barack Obama? So as to spare your tender sensibilities? Ain't gonna happen, nor should it.] To invoke one of Bush’s most degrading moments of smirky chest-puffery, I say don’t bring it on. [ Au contraire, mon ami. La lutte continue. Vive Rick Perry!] Say goodnight, Michael. The darkness is about to descend on your happy four years of bliss. Four years is quite enough for the cultural experience of being ruled by Barack Obama.
Cue Kate Smith singing GOD BLESS AMERICA]
As Rush likes to say, they’ll always tell you what they fear most.
I don’t get the uber-angst about this article.
There are only a couple of things I find distasteful about it. Mainly, that it doesn’t touch on a single issue, and this will certainly be an issues-election. Secondly, the worshipful (i.e., self worshipful) tone of the author regarding Obama is indeed pretty sickening.
But I think he truthfully lays out the social divide. I finally fulled tuned into it just before the 2008 election when I had a conversation with a good friend from Massachusetts, who had totally bought 100% of the drivel about Sarah Palin. And there was no talking with him about it either. But even more revealing was one of the things he said when I rather mildly challenged him about his prejudice. He said “Did you see that tv show where she was talking with those church women in Houston?” I hadn’t. “It was like all she could talk about was Jesus in those southern drawls. I’ve never heard anything so stupid.” I’m not even particularly religious, but that was enough. That friend, who is a successful business guy with a technical background, probably has an IQ of 130 or so, has been so brainwashed that it’s impossible to get through.
I think the nutter writer of the article is just expressing how the nutter self-styled elite really feel about anyone who disagrees with them.
And I’m content to have it out in the open. Let them fester and rant in public rather than in private. America needs to learn who they really are.
btw, it will get a lot worse than this, no matter who is nominated. They’re still firing spit wads at this time.
‘I don’t get the uber-angst about this article.’
Totally agree with that comment. Tomasky was/is a member of Journolist and writes for the Guardian. The article that Belladonna hyperventilates over is just standard Tomasky lefty liberal speak. For that very reason it is important to regularly read and be up to speed on his stuff. It’s good to get liberals exposing themselves via their writing.
I don’t read this post as “uber-angst.” “Angst” means anxiety, apprehension or insecurity. “Uber” meaning “more than” in this case. This strikes me as a passionate rebuttal to an obnoxious piece of work. I see no apprehension in Ms. Rogers’ writing. Only fierce adherence to her principles, which happen to be mine, as well. Tomasky was asking for this, and Belladonna gave it to him. I, for one, am glad she did.
I’ll agree with that.
I guess I would have to say then that Belladonna seems more bothered by it than I am. It seems like normal libwit ranting to me. They are children. I wish more of them would throw their tantrums in public, instead of slinking around in the sewers with their comrades.
I agree with you. Ms. Rogers offered a passionate deconstruction of this purely bigoted drivel. However, I think a less passionate deconstruction is more merited. Passion gives such drivel more credit than it is worth.
There are only two ways to deal with this cultural divide, violent or non-violent. We could have a violent revolution, and line a bunch of the Leftist voices up against a wall. Or, we can just relegate them to the lunatic fringes where they belong. While the former has an atavistic appeal, I kinda prefer the latter, seeing as I am not like them. We need to dismiss them, not treat them as something to be taken seriously.
It is true that they have been having real-world consequences, but that is only because folks have been taking them seriously, instead of dismissing their views as the rantings of maniacs that they are.
Tomasky is not just stupid. He’s Maureen Dowd stupid, Frank Rich stupid. A clotted, pompous, completely closed-minded “cosmopolitan” bigot of the first order. He is also a nearly perfect weather vane for the conventional Liberal “wisdom.” To read Tomasky is to know exactly what millions of urban “sophisticates” are thinking. So in that sense, he serves a useful purpose. Like taking a culture from a counter-top to figure out what bacteria got a bunch of people sick.
“Like taking a culture from a counter-top to figure out what bacteria got a bunch of people sick.”
What a wonderful metaphor! Pitch perfect!
Excellent fisking, Ms. Rogers. I detect a clear anti-white southern bias in Mr. Tomasky’s writings, but what else could you expect from a Daily Beast writer but unself-aware bigotry?
One small caveat, which Tomasky probably isn’t aware of but doesn’t care about: To southerners, anyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line is a “Yankee”, whether they’re from the Northeast or not. So, technically, Tomasky is right about Romney in that respect. However, he fails to note that there are an awful lot of southerners who are also Mormons. Some of them are even people of color. So, yet again, he displays appalling ignorance about who Americans are.
Anyway, I’m voting for Rick Perry.
Wait, wait, he didn’t mention the underwear! Rick Perry’s mom made underwear for him. This disqualifies him in the mind of many, many liberals. Nobody is saying he was raised by a thrifty, resourceful, skilled parent- who sent him to COLLEGE!
Texas Monthly picks on that detail. I’m flabbergasted, b/c I make my husband’s underwear, and probably the richest woman I know makes her husband’s underwear, too. My husband has multiple degrees, we own several thousand books, he has a complex, demanding intellectual job—and that’s the detail that’s supposed to have liberals laughing at him.
I’ve hear liberals use this line. My dad for one. who went to school in flour-sack shirts his mother made. and she picked him up from school wearing flour-sack dresses she’d made for herself. And he went to college, too, b/c his family had saved and scrimped and dreamed. He didn’t, and all the college I got, I paid for. and yeah, I wore dresses I’d made myself. It’s insanity. It’s complete fiscal idiocy. It’s not seeing farther than the end of the nose on a supercilious face.
ari, it’s fascinating to me that you wrote this comment. The entire time (all five minutes or fewer) that I was reading the Tomasky post, I was wondering when he was going to lash into Gov. Perry’s mother on the hand-sewn underwear issue. I think he’s probably unaware of it. He didn’t seem to have knocked himself out doing a lot of research to produce this supercilious post. His “research” appears to have consisted of sitting around with his pals (all one or two of them) and “interviewing” them between sips of Chablis and bites of Brie.
I salute you, Gov. Perry’s mother and all men and women everywhere who have sewn their children’s or their own clothes and underclothes to save money for more important things—like education.
He didn’t do much research, is probably the exact right answer.
Reagan once stated, “I don’t like that man very much. I guess I’ll have to get to know him better.”
Does Tomasky WANT to know Perry better? From the bigoted tone, I suspect not. Bigots do not want to get to know the target personally, because then they won’t be able to remain bigoted. They cling bitterly to their bigotry, their antipathy to those who are not like them.
This is something that makes me nearly dizzy with rage. My grandmother- daughter of a tenant farmer- sent her son to college. My grandfather- son of a tenant farmer- sent his son to college. This college educated swan never, not once, saved a dollar for anything, for anybody. He’s nearing retirement, and still in debt. And he calls up my brother and me and harasses us and shames us b/c we don’t have college degrees. We have 1/2 and 3/4 of a degree- paid for by our own selves, our own work, our sweat. I get up every morning to make lunch for my husband, b/c it saves around $1,500 per year. I make lunch for the kids. We, finally, 12 years in, can eat out once a month, at a hamburger stand. We are called unsophisticated b/c we aren’t dining out each week, or going to first-run movies each month. I’m considered miserly b/c I can tell you the price of every meal, down to the pennies- it’s 12 cents for stove- popped popcorn, if you must know—
That Rick Perry comes out of that, and knows how it works, and appreciates it- I am so voting for him.
Tomasky is from West Virginia. People from rural areas try harder than most to fit in with their “sophisticated” crowds. It is very important for him to ridicule people from outside the big urban metro areas because he lives in fear that his “sophisicated” friends see him as the rural dope he describes. But when he writes witty posts like this he can prove how talented and committed he is to their cause. No need to fear him, he deserves our pity. He lives in fear of his friends and must mock others to prove his value.
What a sad existence that must be. Reminds me of Lillian Rearden and James Taggart from Atlas Shrugged.
This article seems overdrawn. I have to confess I went through the link and read through the blog or whatever it is in question, and found little that objectionable–but then I tend not to be hypercritical of expressions of opinion as opposed to fact. So for instance Tomasky asserts that the culture war that we’re currently in started in the ’80s, and Ms. Rogers argues that it started earlier. This is a matter of perspective and opinion. You could date the start of the culture war to Roe vs. Wade or the start of the Civil Rights movement or basically any other culturally significant event from the last millineum. If Tomasky chooses to start it with Reagan vs. Carter in 1980, it’s an opinion. It’s not unassailable, but it’s also not untenable. It’s an opinion.
Also, frankly, if you read the article through, clearly, without playing “Gotcha!” with the author, there’s only (as far as I was concerned anyway) one real howler, when he makes the snide remark about Bush wrecking the country. That aside, what the author is saying is that the base of each party essentially holds the other in visceral contempt. If you read between the lines, the way he’s describing his and his friends’ disdain for Bush’s religious principles, it’s almost as if he’s outing himself as a bigot.
A couple of other observations. Characterising Romney as a “Yankee” would depend on where you’re from; one of the other commenters says Tomasky’s from West Virginia, which means anyone from North of Mason Dixon fits the description. Also, whether Romney was born in Michigan or on Mars, his political identity is as governor of Massachussetts, and he’s famously been rather more “moderate” on social issues that most of the rest of the Republican Party, as befits a “Yankee” Republican from Mass. Correcting the author because of something like this is just nitpicking; it’s like saying that Reggie Jackson shouldn’t be remembered as a Yankee because he started his playing career in Oakland. Just because it’s technically true doesn’t make it *true.*
I think the author wrote a decent editorial. He asserted that Perry is going to be the frontrunner, which I think is probably correct. The author lays out a pretty good case for Perry lighting up the base in a way that Romney can’t, or won’t. The author correctly asserts that Wall Street isn’t the heart of the Republican Party these days (it’s my opinion most of those guys would back anyone from Hitler to Stalin if they thought they could assure themselves a healthy profit margin); I probably would argue a bit that the author moving the heart of the party to Texas is a bit of hyperbole, but where else are you going to put it? Most of the rest of the Republican Party has been waiting with bated breath for Perry to announce, largely because Romney was the alternative and no one is really that enthusiastic about him, other than Mitt himself.
I’ll agree the author’s biased…but he did little to hide that, and was frankly more honest about himself and his friends, and their motivations and predilictions and so forth than most liberals are. I have one quibble with what he wrote, other than the obvious howler (as I noted above) about Bush wrecking the country: I have more books in my house than most liberals have ever *seen* let alone read…and the friend of mine who’s got the most after me is more conservative than I am. We’re not all illiterate knuckle-dragging louts.
David -
For heavens sake … don’t let the bus run over you. The culture war is real and has been with us since the late 60′s. In those years I was a political science student at a small state school. As the sole conservative at the school I was regularly “trotted out” as an example that the department supported more than the standard liberal perspective. Not a single faculty member read or taught anything from the Right. The only way you found out about Edward Banfield was by reading on your own. There was no other side. Milton Friedman was never mentioned in my Econ classes. Locke was taught in history, and the only way I read the Federalist Papers was in my Lit classes.
If the idea of a “culture war” seems strange or merely an opinion to you … it’s only because we gave up fighting the war “back in the day.”
As the saying goes, it ain’t over till the Fat Lady sings. And Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” pretty much winds it up.
The Lefties are running scared.
Awww heck. Bring it on. I’ve decided that I’m no longer afraid of a culture war: It is what it is.
There ARE two cultures in America: American and AcademicMarxist. It is what it is.
Marxism/Socialism has failed miserably everywhere it has been tried. Only academic socialists, insulated from the realities of providing genuine day-to-day assistance to the people around them – this IS what the market does – hold any faith in this worn-out system of cliches. It is bust.
I’m an academic. I work at a top 25 University in a middling to senior position. I’m surrounded by colleagues who posture more than they think. For them, it is comfortable and fitting to imply all manner of things about a person’s character and intelligence by his “outmoded” beliefs. They might as well judge a person by the cut of his or her clothes or patriotism. Oh … they do that too. They are snide, contemptuous, and cruel.
Let’s consider that for a moment. The Left in America is cruel. Let’s call their criticism for what it is: callow and without heart. It is the criticism of the school-yard. It is the in-crowd making fun of the “other” side. It is snobbery, not substance. Accomplishment for them is thinking the latest thought in the “finest” most complicated language. Accomplishment for the Right is accomplishing something.
For 40 years I have observed the American Left run the day-to-day operations of American universities. They have had nearly free rein. Yet to listen to them, little if anything has improved. We are mired in racism, economic dis-equity, and political dis-empowerment. After 40 years of failure they loudly proclaim a need for MORE of the very things that have failed. Humbug. If you want to see failure, plain and simple, investigate the day to day bumbling wastefulness rampant in an American university.
Good on Governor Perry. Good on ALL who defend him.
Mr. Tomasky says he is concerned about the culture war that will come in the contest between Perry and Obama. He says he doesn’t want the Republicans to ‘bring it on’ that ‘we are divided enough’ that he ‘doesn’t relish it.
Well, if you didn’t want a fight you should not have started one. If you didn’t want a riot you shouldn’t have incited one. If you didn’t want to get slapped in the face you should stop shooting your mouth off. It is really that simple.
Decent people don’t start fights. But they sure as heck are allowed to finish them!!
All the critiques of Tomasky seem on the money. And Belladonna did an excellent job fisking every internal contradiction or logical lapse.
For those commenters who didn’t see Tomasky’s piece as being anything to get worked up about: Agreed, but I think that proves a point: We’ve become so accustomed to reading crap from “progressives” that we don’t react very strongly anymore. And I think we should be reacting very much more strongly in calling out liberal bullshit every time it appears. But it does take a lot of effort, and most of us have more pressing things to do.
I, for one, am a Texan whose ancestors came across on the Mayflower, fought in the Revolution, the Civil War (Yankee side), etc… . Settled the west all the way to Oregon and ended up in Texas. I am a flight instructor part-time and repair commercial aircraft full-time so that all of you can fly safely. In the eyes of these Northeastern liberals, I’m too stupid and don’t have the ability to vote properly. So the next time they board an aircraft and fly at 35,000 ft they should think about who was working on the aircraft and who instructed the pilot… I’m just sayin’…….. Have a nice day, ya’ll.
Perhaps he’s a snob because he thinks it will make people associate him with something he’s not. Michael is not an Easterner nor an Ivy League graduate. If he stood up for people like himself his friends on the left might consider him some kind of hillbilly rube.
From Wiki:
“Tomasky was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia. He attended West Virginia University as an undergraduate and then studied political science in graduate school at New York University. “
Firstly, please don’t judge all from Morgantown based upon Mr. Tomasky. His opinions stand in stark contrast to a majority of the community outside of the halls of the university.
Secondly, while I admit there are those in this great state that fit the hillbilly stereotype, I have found that the left is so fond of typing us as backward because we remain a bastion of American values. I mean no disservice to anywhere else in this great country, but growing up in an area where you are stereotyped because of your home helps imbue strong values of family, faith, charity, and most of all freedom. I have traveled to many places in this country and it angers me when I see how liberalism has stifled the American Dream in the major cities.
Liberals have every reason to be afraid of candidates like George W. Bush, Rick Perry, or any other who is unabashedly proud of this country and their accomplishments. When genuine, they are the epitome of the American Dream and the greatness of this “the last best hope of man on Earth”. One day I am afraid that we will have more than a “cultural showdown” during an election, but a national split between those that believe in an Orwellian America and those that believe in the greatness of these United States of America.
Right on!
I didn’t read the whole thing, but Mr. Tomasky’s superficiality was so evident in the part I did read, and it saddened me. We’re all guilty of being superficial and ignorant to some degree, I suppose, but it isn’t something to publicly revel in.
As I grow older, it’s hard not to notice that people’s exteriors have little to reveal about their interiors. Immense, innate kindness can exude from someone who isn’t all that good looking or smartly dressed. Watching TV one night I happened on the story of a teenage girl who had simply disappeared. Her body was found over a year later. Her mother was being interviewed, and I was struck by her appearance. She looked a bit drab and dowdy, I think she worked as a waitress. She went through her days smiling and talking to people, but she lived with this awful loss, one that most of us will never have to face (thankfully). She just carried on. There used to be a term for people like this: salt of the earth, and it was said with respect and admiration.
Anyway, if I ever find myself evaluating people by imagining what music they listen to and what kind of parties they attend, I’ll know I’m seriously on a downward path. In the little hamster wheel in my mind I can make up anything I want to about people – we all can, and Mr. Tomasky’s wheel appears to be in frantic overdrive – but what counts is what people say and what they do. If Mr. Tomasky is really smart, someday he may learn that, but I suspect that his intent is simply to make up his own little fiction and try to convince people that it’s fact.
tomasky is one of them there highly ejakated, liberal/progressive/democrat party of fisting, oh so smarmy “pseudo-intellectuals” ! they sit at a keyboard with their liberal/progressive writing for geniuses book and a thesaurus and put a bunch of words together that turns out to be nothing but ignorant nonsense. they’re just too smart to realize it ! it’s pathetic but comical !
ROUNDS COOKING OFF
The Democrats have this “enemies list” — denominated in epithets aimed at the people whose wallets they wish to hijack and take up residence inside. You can be a “Racist!” and you can “wear a tinfoil hat” and you can be a “Homophobe!” and you can be a “T-bxgger!” — a homosexual man taking his partner’s scrotum into his mouth. You can be “Selfish!” and you can be a “Wacko!” and you can be a “Hick!” and you can be a “Rube!” and you can be “Uneducated” and you can be an “Extremist!” You can be a “Right-wing-nut!” and you can be “Mentally Ill” and you can be “Deranged!” and you can be a “Flake!” and a “Warmonger!” and you can be “Unenlightened!” and you can be a “FatCat!” and you can be a “Nazi!” and you can be a “Fascist!” — although no one more closely approaches the precise description of “Nazi!” or “Fascist!” than the usual Democrat propagandist — either official, or self-appointed.
Lies, after all, are the heart and soul and the sword and shield of the Democrat party.
So all you have to do to occupy multiple epithets on the Democrats’ enemies list is to insist that they take their hands off yourself, off your wallet, off your property, off your kids, off your diet, off your healthcare, off your household appliances, off your car, off your bank account, off your weapons of self-defense, off your liberty, and off your freedom of speech. Insist on all these good things – and that qualifies you to be spat upon by nasty, mean-spirited scXm — by The Friends of All Mankind — by a gang of lying, thieving, dope-smoking, pill-popping, coke-snorting, sticky-fingered, bloodsxcking, tax-eating, gun-stealing, predatory humanitarian thugs — by the Democrat party, in other words. No political party in the history of America more profoundly deserves absolute and outright destruction.
OhBummer is a b00b and a fool for attacking the American Tea Partiers. Heck, he thought that he had all of us hoodwinked, hornswoggled, and bamboozled. He’s annoyed that the Tea Partiers are not grateful to him for hijacking the American healthcare system — the greatest act of vandalism perpetrated upon the American people since a gang of jihadi frootloops and loonytoons hijacked some planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers — and the Pentagon, and made a failed attempt to crash into the White House — and instead drilled a hole in a Pennsylvania farm thanks to some very courageous American passengers.
And — now widely seen for what he is — the president presents a problem for the Democrat-captured media. They pump out his propaganda for him — and, like the opinion monitors in Ayn Rand’s novel, “Atlas Shrugged” — they are dodging brickbats and rotten vegetables.
He’s pompous, pampered, and pretentious — a pseudo-intellectual fop. He’s a glorified, smooth-lyin’ dandy, and slicker than Sick Willie Clinton. He’s a dictator-on-the-make, a bloodsxcking, predatory humanitarian thug, and a low-down skunk.
He’s a fraud and a swindler. He lies when he inhales and he lies when he exhales; his oxygen is the falsification of reality. He lies, placidly and laconically, as if deception were a soporific drug.
He’s a friend of the poor and the downtrodden — indeed, you can hear the milk of human kindness sloshing around inside of him when he walks.
He declares himself the post-racial leader — “Let me be clear!” he intones — and he hides behind his race, daring his critics to put their reputation for fairness at risk.
He pauses to ponder the portent of his propaganda — and it is fakery; he smiles and his mendacity comes shining through. Shake hands with Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer — “The Mistake of ‘08” — the illegal alien squatter in the White House until his “papers” have been lab-tested for age and chemicals, etc — the King of The Republic of Lies — and America’s first and last Arab president. Now count your fingers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
— Karl Hess, libertarian speechwriter for Senator Barry Goldwater
“It is the duty of a conservative to maximize freedom” Karl and Barry again.
The first line of the book, if I remember right.
MUSSOLINI LUVS OHBUMMER — MUSSOLINI ON STATISM AND CENTRAL PLANNING
MUSSOLINI ENDORSES THE ECONOMIC AND ENERGY POLICIES OF BARAK HUSHPUPPY OHBUMMER AND THE OHBUMMER WRECKING CREW!
“We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.”
— Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy
SAM ADAMS IS MORE THAN JUST A GREAT YANKEE BEER!
TAX HATER SAMUEL ADAMS, ON A ROLL AND ARMED TO THE TEETH, AUGUST, 1776……
“You darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check.
“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, and supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
“Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?”
“It does not take a majority to prevail….but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.”
“The Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
SPARKS FROM WYATT’S TORCH
What this country needs is a truly LIBERAL president and congress and judiciary! And I forgive the reader for suspecting that this must be some kind of bad joke!
But the Democrats believe in “statism” — not “liberalism.”
Strip them naked of their “liberal” camouflage and behold them in all their ugliness.
They benefit from the imprecise American political terminology —- we say “the government” here in the USA —- rather than “the state.” And that’s a dangerous problem. Famous brands of statism in recent centuries have been Nazism, socialism, fascism, communism, and welfare statism —- this last is a mixture of fascism and socialism.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is a political philosophy of small, cheap government —- it is a constabulary —- and the job of a liberal government is to enforce human rights within its own jurisdiction. I speak of the unalienable and perfectly-natural and universally-valid human rights of life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of personal happiness.
The first article of private property is “the self” and all other rights are derivatives of and flow from these cardinal rights. These rights —- The Rights of Man —- are the gift of nature or of nature’s god —- and they belong to all human beings, everywhere.
Show me a Democrat who subscribes to all of the above, without qualifications or weasel words. The words “liberal” and “liberalism” were hijacked by the Democrats and socialists and fascists long ago —- and it was the mistake of conservatives and libertarians to let them get away with it.
It is long past time that liberalism be reclaimed, defined, and explained by its rightful owners —- by the champions of freedom, i.e.: not by Democrats.
Well, how about “progressivism?” Whuzzat?! “Cancer” is “progressive,” too. Isn’t “progressivism” just another statist cancer? It chews you up, piece by piece, in the name of Da Peepul? Eat Da Rich? Moral cannibalism, anyone?
Friends of freedom! Friends of peace-through-strength! And friends of prosperity! Declare yourselves to be “liberals,” then —- and kick over the bloody coffee tables — and overthrow and trounce the Democrats in 2012!
I’d like to address this from a different perspective. First, some cultural “credentials:” I was born and raised a Yankee,and graduated from a highly regarded northeastern liberal arts college. I spent most of my early years surrounded by what many of Tomasky would regard as the cultural elite. I went to school with many who went on to careers in Fortune 500 companies, Wall Street, law and politics. I spent more time than I care to admit being sneered at and judged by those who considered themselves “The Top 1%” and I remember hating it and feeling horribly out of place. During all my years in the northeast, I can recall a sick, uneasy vibe every time I was around these condescending, self-important pricks. In their world, they were the Fortunate Ones, and anything west of the Hudson River was a bunch of low-rent, ignorant rubes. You can FEEL the arrogance seeping from their pores, and what’s worse, many of them have no business patting themselves on the back — because frankly, they’re not “all that.”
Then I moved to Texas, and lived there for 13 years. As luck would have it, I got into journalism in Austin and on a few occasions had the opportunity to meet and chat briefly with Rick Perry. I also have had off-the-record conversations with some of his close advisors and friends, some of whom I’m sure will play some role in his campaign, and possibly his future presidency. Unlike the elitists I grew up around in the east, I can say this about Perry and all his associates in Texas: they are GENUINE. They’re decent people. You may not like their political and social views, but they come by those views honestly.
A couple of other observations that will make Tomasky and his ilk want to crawl up into a fetal position: first, Perry and his kind are good people. You feel good being around them. They make you feel comfortable. Perry is the kind of guy you could sit on a barstool with, drink a few beers, and shoot the BS. Just like Bush, by the way. By contrast, the typical east coast elitist would stand there and look down his nose at me, whilst sipping his vodka and tonic.
Second, and perhaps most disconcerting to Tomasky, is that Perry and his people are SMART. The fundamental mistake I’ve seen east coast elitists like Tomasky make time and again is assuming that because a guy like Perry didn’t get a Yale or Harvard pedigree and doesn’t go to the yacht club every weekend, he’s an idiot. Don’t underestimate Perry, his humble roots and his Aggie education. And don’t underestimate his advisors. They’re some of the sharpest, shrewdest, most formidable people I’ve ever encountered. And they’re 100% dedicated to their social and political world view — and they know how to defend it.
Will Perry win the presidency? I don’t know. But as one who has lived in both the “privileged” northeast as well as the Great State of Texas, I can tell you that Perry is going to create a lot of angst for those on the cocktail party circuit. And I’m going to love every minute of it.
Nick, you make a lot of excellent points, and I’m glad you wrote your comment. In her introduction to her take-down of Michael Tomasky, Belladonna also referred to the fact that Perry appeals to Ivy League graduates as well as to Texas farmers. This is what she wrote, above:
“Mr. Tomasky, you don’t have a clue about the kinds of people to whom Gov. Perry appeals. This is what comes of living and breathing in a liberal bubble. It never dawns on you that Ivy League-educated people with all manner of higher degrees, for whatever those degrees are worth, are extremely happy that Gov. Perry is set to announce today. Sorry, but many Perry-supporters were born and raised and and were highly educated in those same cosmopolitan centers of Eastern snobbery with which you associate your candidate. We proudly associate ourselves with every flag-saluting, Bible-reading, Texan, mid-Western, Southwestern, Western, Pennsylvanian, Southeastern, Appalachian, Iowan, Northern Plains, Wyoming voter for whom today is a great day in our country’s history. Don’t for a moment think we’re all the same. Far from it. We come in all colors, all religions, all imaginable backgrounds, and we’re—to quote the ebullient late Hubert H. Humphrey— pleased as punch that Perry is in the race.”
The LIBS are scared to death now!
I had been chewing my fingernails because my gut didn’t talk to me until now. I was worried because the GOP had yet to come up with someone that my gut could respond to. I was worried because we have a sufficient number of idiots who might just bring our disaster back for a second term which would finish America. But 30 seconds after Perry started to talk on TV, my gut started talking to me. “We got our guy,” it said to me. “We got a winner.” Now lets all make sure we get behind him, clear the way for him. Help him in every way we can. Let’s help him pick the best possible Vice President, not just another stick figure to parade during the campaign and stuff in a closet later. One that comes to mind is Allen West. He can distinguish between our friends and our enemies. I’m not a big believer in anything but I heard my gut say, “Thank God!”
Kudos to Belladonna. This was the most delicious put downs of a pompous, Liberal, intellectual jackass who, perhaps inadvertently, reveals himself and his contemporaries for the mindless, bigoted, race obsessed pinheads they are. It was also very funny.
It’s still early in the game but maybe Perry is the guy who can give Republicans a much needed Grand Slam win in 2012.
Thank you, Geppetto. Much appreciate your kudos. In fact, I love kudos. Who among us doesn’t? Many thanks.
Funny typo alert:
That should be “direct from the liberal HORSE’S mouth”, not “direct from the liberal hose’s mouth”, Ms. (?) Belladona Rogers…
…h’m, on second thought… stet.
Thanks, Skeptic. I fixed it. Much appreciate a careful reader. I agree that it could have stet, but “horse’s mouth” was my intention. Never hesitate to call a typo or any error to my attention. I try to avoid them; I wrote this post in high dudgeon, as you could doubtless tell, and I should have proofed it even more carefully than I did. My thanks again.
Do you think Perry was saluting a “corpseman”?
He’s a Journolister, Belladonna, one of those in the first waves to disinform the people about Sarah Palin, in the first hours, who made it in the soccer scrum to pass that to the UK, like he has with the two minute hate against NewsCorps
Way to go, Bella! So glad you kicked his Guardian arse. Can I write that? The only policy that liberals have is to keep blaming Bush (they usually call him Shrub) for everything, including wrecking the country. I love that you give him rights and lefts, kicks, shoves, more lefts and right and upper cuts too. He’s toast. Nice that you point out all the “liberal” qualities, like shuddering and hating Bush’s “puffed out chest” and the salutes to the flags or to military men and women. I do want to point out one thing, however, and that is that Obama did NOT bow to the king of Saudi. It was worse. He genuflected to him. And any good old Catholic will tell you the difference any day. I cannot think of any president, ever, who has done more damage to our country than the Obama. Bless you, dear lady.