Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this…
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
I read with disappointment Andrew Klavan’s post entitled “Why We Should Be Unfair to Herman Cain” in which he explains that it is the right, not the left who must be fair:
And yes, it’s unfair. But there’s a reason it’s unfair—a reason it should be unfair. There’s a reason we right wingers vet our candidates while the left adulates theirs, a reason we condemn our miscreants while the left elevates theirs, a reason our news outlets cover stories that the left covers up.
The reason is: we’re the good guys. We have to do what’s right. The left doesn’t. Sorry, but that’s the way it works. It’s the price you pay for defending what’s true and good, the price of holding yourself to a high moral standard. Our politicians have to be better than their politicians. Our journalists have to be more honest. Even our protesters have to behave with decorum and decency—and still suffer being slandered—while theirs can act like animals and commit acts of violence and lawlessness and spew anti-semitic filth and still find themselves excused and glorified…
Herman Cain is going to have to run the gauntlet, not just of a racist and dishonest left that wants to destroy him but of a fair-minded and decency-loving right that wants him to come fully clean and let the voters decide how we should proceed. The fight for truth, liberty and morality requires sacrifice and self-examination. The self-righteous quest for power over others does not.
The world is just as unfair as you think it is. You’ll never catch the devil hanging on a cross.
Bullshit. What Klavan is advocating is political suicide. He might as well have taken his playbook from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals where Alinsky’s fourth rule is “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this…”
Mr. Klavan, telling the right that they have to live up to some impossible standard while excusing the left is laughable. All it will get you is defeated. Do you remember the Fresh Prince of Bel Air episode where Will Smith’s Uncle Phil was running for political office? His opponent, the guy who played George Jefferson in The Jeffersons bad-mouthed Uncle Phil all over the media. The family told Uncle Phil that he needed to fight back but Uncle Phil stated that he was “not going to sink to that level.” He lost the election by a landslide. He did eventually get appointed to the office when his opponent died by the governor but that’s not the point.
The point is, we must not let the left use our morality to hold us hostage. You may never catch the devil hanging on the cross, but your double standard will leave the right hanging in defeat, just like Uncle Phil, but without the safety net of his opponent dying. Life isn’t a nostalgic TV show or fiction book. The good guy doesn’t always win just because you want him to. And though you can feel noble about being the honorable one, honor is no substitute for the loss of freedom, increased government regulation, and economic woes that our country will suffer if the left wins on election day.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This perfectly explains my thought process after reading Mr. Klavan’s misguided article. I like him, but he is living in unicorn cotton candy land with that piece.
Amen, Dr. Helen. This falling on our swords business has got to stop, especially in a situation like this, where we have no substantiation of anything.
You are exactly right, Dr. Helen. Klavan is too smart by half.
What we Conservatives need to do is use Truth as our mighty weapon to face down and destrroy every political bogeyman in the leftists’ arsenal. That includes racism, political correctness, sexism, ageism….”able-ism”. And most importantly of all Conservatives must not cower at accusations of hypocrisy because we are not all virtuous all the time. We are TRUTHFUL human beings.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Another aspect of this is not letting the media decide who is a conservative or who will be the Republican candidate. The way they roast people, I’m surprised anyone runs for anything ever.
Don’t play into Alinsky’s hands, or Karl Rove’s hands, or Mitt Romney’s hands, or Rahm Emanuel’s hands, or even Rick Perry’s hands.
If we do, we are letting the leftist/RINO establishment tell us who we are allowed to call a conservative.
Take a close look at who is really behind all of this!
I am totally in agreement with you, Dr. Helen. The right needs to play by the left’s rules.
Maybe it’s because I’m a libertarian at heart or maybe it’s because I know I have my own moral failings, but I am certain that Mr. Cain’s sex life is no more my business than President Clinton’s was. (I was quite angry about Monica Lewinsky because that sex took place on the job, which means work he was elected to do wasn’t getting done. Sex after 5 when there’s no crisis going on and occurring outside the oval office is none of my business.)
The Bible says “There is none righteous, no, not one.” The socially conservative wing of the Republican party needs to stop looking for the morally perfect candidate, because the expedient wing of the Democratic party will always take advantage of that. Reagan was right, we should take the best we can get and move on to fight for more. I am not sure that Herman Cain is the best we can get, but I am sure the left is fighting hardest against him right now and that’s a point in his favor to me.
“The socially conservative wing of the Republican party needs to stop looking for the morally perfect candidate…”
Except they don’t.
George W. Bush was routinely attacked by the left as a former party animal, apparently in the belief that the social conservatives would turn on him. It didn’t happen, because the social cons aren’t the parodies used to portray them. They (most of them) realize paragons don’t exist among the merely mortal.
(And I’m *not* a social con. I just don’t believe what the press tells me, preferring to use my own experience as a guide.)
‘…which means work he was elected to do wasn’t getting done’
Really? That’s why it was wrong? The Balkans conflict would have been handled better if he had more time from 9 to 5. You are aware it’s a 24 hr. job, don’t you? As for the so-con comment, that’s rich. Libertarians bitch about imperfect candidates all the time. Try to find out more about people you don’t like before you attack them.
I like Andrew Klaven A LOT, but I have to say he is off base here and Dr. Smith is right.
I was living in california when Matt Fong was challenging Barbara Boxer in ’98 for the US Senate seat. Fong made a BIG DEAL about running a “clean” campaign, and the Boxer camp followed suit and vowed the same thing. But with a few weeks left, and with Fong significantly leading in the polls, Boxer started running negative ads and hit pieces. Fong stayed true to his word and never ran a negative ad. In fact, he hardly even spoke out against the ads against him, and his lead slowly went down until he lost the election.
The “public” didn’t punish Boxer for breaking her promise, nor did they reward Fong for keeping his. That’s a truth of human behavior that a lot of conservatives need to learn.
The truth of the matter is that negative ads work. If you don’t learn that, then the only elections you are going to win are on sitcoms where your opponent conveniently dies in office.
I have always been with Andrew Klavan until this one. The Progressives believe in moral relativity and this makes it impossible for them to lie or flip flop since the ‘truth’ always changes to suit the current message. I am a conservative and can deliberately lie for a specific purpose but not for a moral relative purpose. The stupid Progressive smear machine doesn’t distract me for one second from the screwed up economy. I could care less about allegations of ancient misdemeanors by any Republican candidate.
I am so used to every politician being a total scumbag that judgement only involves a matter of degree with them.
On Twitter last night, I said I hoped, if untrue, that Herman would go after her like an avenging angel ~ just lay waste to the entire scurrilous “harrassment” harrassment once and for all.
I’m sick of being “the nice guys”. All it’s gotten us is lies, misery and ruin.
A few days ago I posted one of my favorite scenes from “Blazing Saddles”, which contains a line that should be used more often in these times, all things considered.
You just used a TV-sitcom as the example why you are right and the other guy is wrong. I could with a half dozen episodes of other show where the reverse is true.
Or a real live example. Compare the Tea-party protest to the current Occupy protests. Are you saying that the Tea party people should stoop to the level of the Occupy people?
Who said anything about the Tea Party or Occupy idiots?
We simply destroy someone who deserves to be destroyed. How’s that stooping to someone else’s level? If someone is lying to destroy a candidacy, you destroy that person. If it’s true, then she will be vindicated and Cain, deservedly, will be destroyed. You’ve got a problem with that?
So four allegations of sexual misconduct, two five-figure sexual harassment settlements, and conflicting inconsistent statements by Mr. Cain and we’re supposed to give him the benefit of the doubt?
Four allegations in a high-profile career spanning how many years?
Yes, because there is no trace of any evidence of his guilt. Coming from Allred, coming from anonymous people, coming from people who took ludicrously low settlements–his accusers have no credibility.
No evidence?
The word of four women. One of whom is already doing the talk show circuit and three more in reserve for 2012 should Cain get the nomination.
Two five-figure settlements, which contrary to your assertion are not “ludicrously low.” The idiot who first came up with “ludicrously low” obviously knows nothing about employment law. Endless repetition does not make it any less asinine.
Cain initially said he was “unaware of any settlement”, despite being head of the association and being the subject of the settlements. When it was clear that wouldn’t fly he changed his story to, we “ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement”, which means his first response was a lie.
Except we don’t have the word of four women. We have the word of one woman, and another woman’s lawyer. The one woman we do have the word of is someone who’s been in and out of bankruptcy for years yet somehow got Gloria Allred (who won’t even talk to you unless you have $20,000) as her lawyer, and who was seen happily hugging the very man she’s accusing not a month ago at a Tea Party rally.
That’s some pretty thin gruel to sustain a story.
Allred is an effective and capable lawyer who probably offered to represent Bialek for no or reduced fee. And most of her cases have merit. Why shouldn’t Bialek hire her?
Most importantly Cain lied. He said he had no knowledge of any settlements. There were two five-figure sexual harassment settlements based on allegations against him, that we know of, while he was head of the National Restaurant Association. He then changed his story and admitted he did know about the settlements.
Do you really want a GOP standard bearer who lied about sexual harassment settlements? Is that how we beat Obama?
Bruce, Cain had no knowledge of the settlement and he has said nothing different yet. He was not a signatory party to it. Are you sure you’re tall enough for this ride?
Are you the Finrod I knew at RedState? I’ve done more dismissals of Correctional Officers and Probation Officers for what we euphemistically called “undue familiarity” with a female offender than I could ever possibly recall or recount. Most of the women in Alaska’s prisons are skilled veterans of the sex and drug trades. Almost always the union found a way to work in the fact that the woman had prostitution convictions. My standard response was if the whore doesn’t want to do it, it is still rape!
I don’t think these women are whores. I don’t think there was a rape. But I think there was a man in a high level position that really didn’t understand the organizational culture he was in, probably had some what we HR/LR weenies call “boundary issues,” and handled the result abysmally. Somebody who knew him from the NRA served up a nice fat pitch to the Left. Maybe they did it through another campaign, maybe straight to Politico. This was not a take down by the Left. They don’t think that far ahead and they really don’t think about their opposition until they can see the whites of your eyes. To the Obama Campaign, Cain is beneath contempt, so they’re not thinking about him. But the media is like Pavlov’s dog with an allegation of sexual impropriety against ANY Republcan and especially a professing Christian Republican. This isn’t a leftwing plot but it is a leftwing feeding frenzy since there IS BLOOD IN THE WATER. Those settled complaints aren’t something ginned up on the fly by some Democrat Plumbers or Dirty Tricks unit; they were made and settled when Cain was a relative nobody; trade association heads are a dime a dozen in DC. The woman yesterday and the Alred thing is a bit suspect, but the formal complaints long ago may have been self-serving, may have been a shakedown, but they weren’t political. Democrats can hardly think 14 days in the future, they sure as Hell can’t plan 14 years in the future – and if they can, we really need to consider our options.
Unsubstantiated allegations are not evidence.
Anonymous allegations, except for that legally and financially troubled hussy that showed up yesterday, including of behavior that was not “overtly sexual.” We don’t know the details of the NRA settlements, and Herman Cain was not a party/signatory to them, which was why he was not sure of the details. Pay attention.
I need evidence, not anonymous innuendo.
Here are a couple questions back at you:
1. Is the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” no longer valid?
2. Is the legal concept that “the burden of proof is on the claimant” no longer valid?
Allegations are not evidence and “he said/she said” isn’t sufficient. Just because someone claims sexual harassment, it doesn’t prove it happened. People, including women, have been known to lie about such things especially when money and/or politics is involved.
How many times must it be said that anonymous allegations are worthless? It’s surprising there are only four, since the Dem media makes it so convenient, painless, and effective to anonymously whisper poison in the public’s ear.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire? If it’s about a black conservative, where there’s smoke there’s a modern-day Orval Faubus with a smoke machine.
Severance pay and settlements to send a litigious loudmouth on her way means only that court costs have been avoided, not that crime has been committed.
Romney should have backed Cain on this – he should have urged everybody to wait and see. He’s not even a good politician.
“A moral victory – Isn’t.” =’[.]‘=
Conservatives already tried looking the other way when “one of us” was involved, remember? The black helicopter crowd was suddenly anti-habeas-corpus and pro-unwarranted-wiretaps, the entitlements reform crowd ignored Medicare part D, the smaller government crowd paid no attention to the largest spending and regulation volume expansions in history, the anti-”nation building” crowd suddenly wanted to rebuild the planet one nation at a time…
And did it work? Did turning a blind eye to misdeeds with an (R) after their name cause Republicans to sweep Congress in 2006, then hold the White House in 2008? Quite the opposite. The first resumption of good news for the GOP came in 2010, mainly thanks to the Tea Partiers, and mainly because they were able to come right out and say “these bailouts are fundamentally bad” while some mainstream Republicans were still trying to stumble over “bailouts were super when Bush started them, but continuing them is bad for some reason”.
Sadly, if good news for the Republicans is going to continue in 2012, it won’t be because the Republicans have gotten their act together; their front runners are still statist hypocrites. They’re just lucky that hypocrisy like “I was for socialized medicine before I was against it” pales in comparison to “I may be exploding the debt (and a few Pakistani kids), but I feel really bad about it!”
defeat them with their own playbook. If an opponent wants to play by certain rules, i will do so JUST FOR THEM and then revert back to the higher moral ground rules when the opponent also acts by them.
Perfect example (hyperbole to make a point); in all but a few rare and specific cases, it’s wrong to assault someone. However, if someone is approaching me a knife and clear intent to assault me, then I need to TEMPORARILY change the code I live by (not assaulting others) to deal with that specific situation. I will revert back to my code of non-assault when the situation is over. Just because you act a certain way for a certain set of conditions does not define your overall morality. You are justified in assaulting to avoid an assault upon yourself. An assault to protect yourself from assault does not automatically mean that you “sunk” to the level of assaulting people.
Why that is so hard for republicans to grasp is beyond me.
I don’t think there’s any way to fight this. It’s a rhetorical trap, sort of like “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Your first choice is to condemn your own candidate – in which case you admit that one of your own is morally tainted and, by extension, you and your party may be tainted as well. You chose him, after all. What does that say about you? Stupid or evil? It also means you lose the election. Your other choice is to pooh-pooh the charges, support your candidate at all costs, and thereby invite your opponents to accuse you of not caring about or of actually supporting whatever he’s accused of. And you still lose the election.
Wrong. By attacking her, we’re telling her you’d better come up with something credible. There’s nothing wrong with ‘discouraging’ false allegations or allegations you can’t back up. In other words, even if a candidate did all those lecherous things, morally, you shouldn’t come forward unless you can back it up.
The way to stop it is to point out that it is a lie, that is is a risible lie. It doesn’t even meet the low standards of Gloria’s past flirtation with perjury.
1. The scene might be believable if H. Cain was a 16 year old white guy. He isn’t and never was.
2. There may be a time for a black man to get flirtatious with a white woman. It certainly won’t be while in a car, so long as ‘driving while black’ is part of some patrol officer’s filters.
3. There might be a time to grope a woman in a car. It certainly won’t be while she is dressed ‘professionally’ ie. wearing pantyhose. I figure H. Cain at over 50 years old knew about panty hose.
4. Throw in seatbelts, surviving cancer, and middle aged lack of flexibility.
It is for the chickens to laugh at.
When was the last time you worked in an office? Pantyhose? The accuser is lying because of pantyhose? Puleeeze.
Thank you!
I just felt sort of nauseous when I read Klavan’s piece. I had work to do, so I forgot about it. You nailed the reason I felt nauseous.
I am torn Dr. Helen…because you both are correct.
We are playing by a different set of rules and forced to compete within the same contest. One of the things that bothers me most (as everyone at PJM bothering to read my comments, even my occasional contributed essay, will attest) is the open conspiracy by the “refs and umpires and judges” in the competition for support by those of us who wish to know the truth, facts, have evidence…in order to self-govern this land of ours.
My belief system and the manner in which I was brought up…perhaps makes me a bit atavistic for today’s “anything goes” rules. Sure, I realize politics ain’t beanbag…but lying, cheating, hoaxing, defrauding, slandering, and conspiring to destroy the information stream in order to have our side “win”, is a Pyrrhic victory to my way of thinking.
The left has “won” the White House, the Senate…for a while the Congress. They have savaged the reputations of George Bush, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Israel, evangelicals, ….virtually everyone and every institution that does not adopt their attitudes, their belief system, their sneering perjorative slogans and chants.
I stand against them for their tactics, for their smugness, for their unwarranted pedantic, schoolmarmish, finger-wagging scold aura. I stand against them for their unrepentant treason, their hatred of our military, for their redistribution hoaxes and schemes…including the decade and a half non-existent global warming…for their self-absorbed prizes for “peace”, Pulitzer, and pop culture…in which nobody but leftists can win…despite MUCH better performance in each category.
But it is the conspiracy to cheat the truth by the mass communication outlets, the pollution of our “information stream” that bothers me most of all. In fact, it enrages me at times…I find myself actually talking back to the TV…an odd outburst for rational beings.
If WE were cheating, lying, stealing the truth from the information stream…I would be ashamed. I would consider it treason from OUR side. We HAVE TO be better than that…because the system itself breaks down when we do not allow those who mean to self-govern this land of ours are fed nothing but lies and propaganda…from EITHER side.
We need to stand up for truth, full stop. Neither side should be in favor of conspiring to hide the facts from the people of this land of ours.
We cannot engage all that is wrong with rampant, unchecked, runaway leftism…by embracing the wrong and making it our own. Even thought that is the far, far easier path.
The Small C Communists have put us in a very precarious position. They are shredding our Constitution, they are ripping us apart from the inside, they are tearing the free market apart limb from limb. We are in a war, whether we like it or not.
The Cooper Union, Midwest Academy, ACORN/SEIU, Soros, Ayers, crowd has us by the throat and they are throttling us.
We MUST fight back with everything we’ve got.
But, we must overcome them…not become them. We have to shine a bright light on all that they are doing…and watch the cockroaches, rats and vermin duck and cover for every baseboard.
Freedom does not come cheaply. The cost to maintain it is vigilance and dedication to the principles that gave birth to it. We cannot sell out those principles on the cheap. We built a wall between ourselves and our government…so that it would not rule us, but we would rule ourselves… we would put a governor on it, so that it could not conspire against us.
That wall is there to protect our freedoms, our liberty, our self-governance. Every American is contained within that wall…including our saints, little babies, our innocents…and right up next to the wall are our criminals, our savages, and the liars, cheats and frauds who mean to overthrow us.
We cannot kick out a few bricks in that wall and say…”pass through the hole JUST the Alinsky, ACORN, Ayers types”. As much as every fiber of my being wants to do that very thing, we cannot. We must not.
Because if we kick out a few bricks and pass out through that hole all those despicable people…we will have a good today. But, we will forever look at that hole as we awake in every tomorrow. Wrong is wrong, right is right, fair is fair.
They are wrong, they are unfair. NO question, no argument.
Their “refs, umpires and judges” are corrupt, cheating us every day.
I want to shine a light on them and drive them out …expose their evil conspiracy.
But, I would rather die trying…than to become them.
The point is that we have to stop believing the leftist media. Every thing they say is either a lie or an unrecognizable distortion of the truth.
The race card got to be overdrawn some time in 2010. Now it’s time to put the kibosh on the sexual card.
Julius Streicher would have been absolutely sick with envy at the propaganda machine that we have here in the US.
Stop believing the leftist media.
Tell everybody else not to believe it either.
Well said.
Do what the lefties do – fire up some ‘non-profit’ NGO who can counterattack the lefty dirty work with anti-lefty dirty work right out of Obama’s and Hillary’s darling Alinsky, with plausible deniability.
excellent post.
if you look around you see the ones who espouse the truth are getting elected recently …even with the cheating and lying from the left.
True, this – it IS more work, by a lot, to defend honorably than to attack dishonorably. But a fair and effective defense is a well-organized, recognizably honest counterattack. Studies have been done on the theories of attack and defense – as I recall, “tit for tat” worked better than any other; i.e. respond reliably with about the same force as that with which you were attacked. We just need to accept, and train ourselves, to know how to do this reliably, every time, without fail, no matter what offbeat angle the slimy ones come at us from. Requires clear thinking and cooperation in developing and executing an honorable response, not ‘falling on my sword’ mentality.
Every useful contemporary systems of ethics understands that survival in the real world requires an adaptive strategy: be ethical, compassionate, fair and true to those who are likewise. Withdraw such treatment and when appropriate, punish with exponential vigor those who do not reciprocate in such kind.
As one who has had an executive career, I’ve had my share of experiences with opportunists, crooks, cheats, manipulators, stalkers and the other ilk that is attracted to an individual with an accelerated and visible trajectory. I learned quickly thanks to a wise colleague the rule of not allowing individuals of the opposite sex and who work for you in any private capacity – closed office door, shared car ride home, etc. Always have mixed-sex witnesses, some of which are from executive ranks. Manipulation is a primary strategy by many and the individual at the top is always a target.
So far, this media Cain assault seems to only show us that these journalists aren’t very different from the psycho stalker imagined girlfriend types who inflate their sense of worth and project themselves into fictional relationships in order to give their worthless lives a sense of meaning.
The woman showed up at Teacon in a revealing dress and made a point of a picture with Mr. Cain!
Wow – I think this smells like a setup.
Here are the rules we should play by:
1) Take the moral high road UNTIL…
2) Our opponentss take the moral low road THEN…
3) Beat them at their own game smiling
Sounds like a plan.
They have visited a war of annihilation upon us. It’s up to us to show them how it’s done. We must continue and continue and continue until all traces of the left (and in that group I would include the likes of Mitt Romney) have been obliterated from public life. The instant we let down our guard, they’ll be back.
You go out there and be the tip of the spear and we’ll all be right behind you! I hate to challenge the fond illusions here, but the name of the book ain’t Rules for Republicans, its Rules for Radicals. Sorry, you’re not going to get a bunch of guys from the Rotary and their wives to go stuff themselves on beans so they can go fart at a City Council meeting. That stuff is what Alinsky is about. Alinsky is about provocation and getting sane, low-key, rational middle class elected and appointed officials to lose their cool and do stupid things. They want you to become them because they’re better at being them than you are at faking it. You’ll do something stupid; guaranteed!
There’s only one rule in dealing with Alinsky disciples; NEVER GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT. I don’t believe this is an Alinskyite operation but assume arguendo that it is; they want Cain to withdraw or us to kick him to the curb on the naked assertion. We don’t give them what they want.
I’m not a big Cain fan, but I’m not going to kick him to the curb over leftist press coverage of sexual harassment allegations; Hell, had a few of those myself, they’re easy to get if you’re a worthwhile target. Cain needs to do his thing. He says he’s as pure as the driven snow, which I think is a mistake ’cause nobody is in today’s world where “pure” is purely a matter of perception. But, he’s decided to bare his breast to the storm. We’ll see how he fares. I don’t think he’s done very well so far, though the high-ticket lawyer yesterday was a good move. That was an effective statement that going further was going to cost somebody some money. Right now we’re just at the stage where you launch a totally unreasonable discovery request so you can find out how much the controversy is worth to somebody. If you really think this is Comrade Obama’ operation, maybe a suit for his college financial records or some such filed in the court of a GWB appointee would be fun.
You know, I was thinking exactly about that last night.
Herman Cain (whom I really don’t care much for) should throw the “book of rules” out the window and face his enemies head-on. “You wanna fight? You will get it. Here, I threw my own book of rules out. Let’s do it with YOUR book of rules, and see what happens!” If he were to throw the Alinsky right back at them, the entire Left would be on an uproar… and eventually hide like the cockroaches they truly are.
The real Leftist trap too many conservatives are falling for is allowing the State to regulate what is and is not acceptable behaviour between men and women. The whole idea of sexual harrassment -as a legal cause of action- is invitation for the State to regulate how you behave and speak during all your waking hours.
Hi Dr. Helen,
On the other hand, if its true (and it is) that the public discourse has become a degraded and unfree thing, then is not the re-establishment of a discourse that IS free and open, a key requirement to restoring and preserving Liberty?
I fear that it is actually playing into the likes of Alinsky to do what it seems you advocate, though I well understand it.
Consider, if you are up against the ruthless, who in this case draw their power from being “above” anything so inconvenient as principles and ethics (because they are serving the “greater good” or “social justice” or whatever other self indulgent rationale they use as balm to soothe the conscious from sophistry and deceit), and you respond by jumping into the mudpit with them, its almost a given that everyone loses… because everything is lost. Thats not sentimental reverence of high ideals.
Klavan has a point about requirements of being the good guys. But I think what is lost here is that this doesn’t mean it requires some sort of stoic passivity. I think you have made a category error with the comparison to Fresh Prince. His problem, was what Bush sufferred from as well. One does not have to “sink” to the level of ones devious opponent, by very actively engaging them! When Bush and his administration failed to engage directly, the various absurdities that came out of the media over time (and the equally degraded Academy of “experts”), what happened was that it grew in volume and absurdity until even the most obscene ideas about what drove that administration (and by extension everyone not a leftist) became first beleivable, and then “true”… at least in the postmodern sense of perception equalling reality… which is a victory in the leftist game.
The result was that the Bush administration, by the second term, was often having to defend obliquely against charges that were completely beyond the pale… and dealing with the fact that perception of reality had so perverted reality itself, that they were unable to confront anything at all in a reasonable way. The discourse, was their enemy. And the doscourse, was claimed to be the people. Few confronted that falsity (much like the so called “international community” has come to represent… the world!!!)
Dont imagine for a second that a MAJOR element of what powered up, and continues to power the Tea Party for example (and all the millions of closet Tea Partiers who themselves are closeted because of a twisted discourse attempting to “frame” that movement in upside down terms useful to the left) is the strong and accurate sense that we are in Plato’s Cave, and the shadow makers are both full of it, and absolutely contra to all that is good and decent about America.
Join in that game in the name of the “right”, and by extension you will reduce the Classical Liberal heart of all that remains that might power up a resurgence of America to… same thing, different end of a flase spectrum.
Kiss the grand experiment good night if that happens.
“Our” side spends far too much side “confronting” the opposition, when the vast majority of what resources we have in the discourse (which are limited by comparison, but still able to achieve impact), is to EXPOSE them, and to ensure that what IS painted left, includes all its adherents, which include so much of the media and the academy.
Interestingly, this idea of “Media Bias”, is a framed discussion as well, and it serves noone. It is not about bias, but about advocacy that is for one side to the detriment of the whole. It is about the false notions of “netrality” and “impartiality” that are beyond laughable, because their impact is far from funny.
Consider that the Tea Party is presently something that the democrats actually consider to have presently been reframed enough, that they now have the idea of “associating” republicans with it, as part of their strategy to win! How is this? Because the re-framing of the phenomenon has been successful.
And it has been successful mostly because when it neared a tipping point and SO much pressure from those with the power of pure volume in the public discourse confronted it, many politicians and others in the public discourse on the right laid low. Validation enough… and tragic.
Instead, this strategy of the Democrats should be considered an OPPORTUNITY to revisit and re-energize the things that have powered the TP, and so should the obvious fact of the “Ye shall know them by their fruit” angle when it comes to the OWS versus the Tea Party. It should know be a huge issue for the right, that this skew happened! It should be shouted. Some are… but if you want a point on message, this is the message. What an opportunity to EXPOSE deceit, abuse of power and hypocrisy! And NOT… by fighting fire with “fire”!
Consider this also, which is only slightly tangential to this. The OWS is openly advocating the idea of a redistributive philosophy becoming virtually a bulwark in America (which is not surprisingly happening at a time when open and shockingly ignorant rejection of free market economics (aka capitalism) is nearing a tipping point in the discourse, especially among the young).
We MUST have THAT debate. The real one. Do we for example accept that it is in any way valid, the heavily pushed “trusim” that the present travails of America are actually the result of capitalism? Of greedy frikkin bankers (what, did we breed new ones?)… of the evil uber rich? Because this is at the core of the OWS, and it is a meme that is being promulgated in endless sound bites to the masses. You have to be in conservative blogs to have an open discussion about the various acts of congress, corruption of the political process, and outright abuse of power among elected Democratic icons… to find that the Bankers really did what bankers always do: Surveyed the lay of the land, and secured low risk arbitrage opporunities. That it blew up, was subject predictably, to the imbalances imposed by the coercive power of the state. Same old story.
But its NOT the story is it? At least not in the public discourse that dominates, which we must accept and confront, as an enemey of the good, period.
Republican debates push back only obliquely on this point by the way. Its disturbing, but not surprising. The right has always dealt with the discourse in “real time” sticking figers in the air (without conidering the big hollywood sized fans making the wind) instead of sticking to their principles until their resistance to the winds of illusion has impact. Instead they “take onboard” the false truisms in the public discourse and we lose, because falsely framing the narrative is high science on the left, and we cannot and should not, win at that game.
Confronting the left and exposing the true state of the discourse, this should be one of the BASIC PILLARS of the entire campaign from the conservative side. Discussing this (What is at the heart of the present crisis, and how do we address it?) should be an issue that at the core, all of those debating argue towards agreement on, and that the finer points of, should be the basis for half the argumentation in these debates overall. Its the crux of everything!
Thats it isnt… bodes very ill… since the other side understands clearly that it is in their direct interest to foist the alternative narrative, and to unleash class warfare for dessert.
Want to create jobs for the many? Rollback DRAMATICALLY the bureacracy and regulatory weight on use of capital. Incentivize the use of private capital through taxes, and enshrine (again) private capital as the driver of growth. Make that promise the source of your beliefs and policy philosophy, and sell it to the people.
Thats a debate! Its the one that must be had if we are not to have the “rug pulled out from under our feet”. Perhaps its wrong. Perhaps we need more stimulus, and a further surrender of sovereignty of private property and economic liberty to very smart planners. Perhaps its time to collectively ignore history, give in to our basest instincts of jealously and sloth and label it “progressive” and eat all the rich “people” and the fat cat corporations for lunch…. and the national welfare will improve. Who knows?
But that debate had better be had… because if its not, its where we’re going. The debt problem is fruit of the tree… not the roots… not even the trunk. And we engage in folly if we ignore the problem that has been growing heavier and more destructive to an America that embraces any meaningful Liberty if we ignore it.
We should not jump in the pit with them, we should ensure that light gets shed on the pit they are in!
And that means that we should bloody well make sure that the light stays on us, and that we are comfortable in it.
THere needs to be some good guys somewhere after all… doesnt there?
Kevin
This is coming from Democrats (Obama)
Gloria Allred smeared Meg Whitman in similar fashion in the California governor’s race vs Jerry Brown.
Now that I think about it, why don’t we give Ms. Bialek the Joe-the-Plumber treatment? Turnabout is fair play.
What really cranks me off is, once again we are watching as our best candidate gets destroyed before our eyes and there is no return fire.
How many times does this have to happen to us before we wake up and realize that they do this to us every time?
When are we going to have a plan in place to deal with this tactic?
When are we going to start routinely sacking their quarterbacks?
We are in a fight for the survival of life as we know it and everything we hold dear and we are repeatedly being taken to the cleaners because we insist on fighting by Marquis of Queensbury Rules.
Conservatives outnumber Progressives by two to one, and yet every election is a toss up and we are in a perpetual stalemate, because they use every dirty trick in the book, and we are constantly dumbfounded that they don’t just debate us like adults and then follow the prescriptions of those with logic and the facts on their side.
If I wasn’t ideologically committed to this fight, if it wasn’t so overwhelmingly important, I’d walk away from the lot of you because it sucks to be on a team with that plays the game this poorly.
I just hope the destruction of Herman Cain is the last straw and Conservatives finally get fighting mad. I am mad as Hell about this, and I fervently hope that for just once in my lifetime, our leaders feel the same.
“If I wasn’t ideologically committed to this fight, if it wasn’t so overwhelmingly important, I’d walk away from the lot of you because it sucks to be on a team with that plays the game this poorly…”
haha– seconded
It’s hard to fight back when the predominant media is in their corner. Look at how much play Solyndra has gotten in the mainstream media, or Fast and Furious. How much of the ignorant, maintstream-media consuming public even know about either of these?
Cain needs to hit back. Hard.
The trouble with Klaven’s piece is it assumes Cain is guilty. How can you demand Cain fess up unless you believe he has something to fess up?
As said, this is all bullshit. You don’t stop bullshit by begging for more.
See also: Atlas Shrugged, the Sanction of the Victims.
“live up to some impossible standard”
This is the problem. Rule #4 only works if the rules are stupid. If people are serious and resist forming unrealistic expectations, there is no problem there.
The Left don’t really use Rule #4 that much anyway. They use people’s ignorance an lack of attention to create unrealistic expectations; they move the goal posts and keep moving them. We let them do that.
The problem is not the way we fight or that we act like good guys — the problem is that we are ignorant and unserious in our thought.
There is no unconsistency between being good and right and honest and honorable and utterly ruthless. For those who doubt that, read up on Lincoln.
An Alinskyite would say Lincoln was irrevocably tainted, morally, because he “started a war,” made ambivalent statements about freeing the slaves, hesitated to finally free them, and suspended habeas corpus. In fact, a lot of revisionist historians do exactly that. To them, Lincoln was practically Public Enemy No. 1. “Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Hitler suspended habeas corpus. Therefore Lincoln was ‘as bad as’ Hitler.”
But I agree with your point – you CAN commit violence when the situation calls for it and, when the crisis is over, go back to being a peaceful citizen. Alinsky will say you’re tainted, evil, now and forever, no matter what your motives were. YOU will know you’re ok because you have a choice, and because each day you choose NOT to commit violence. You’re not a robot.
And Lincoln, when he had it pointed out to him that one of his generals drank, he replied that the man fought.
All are sinners.
Someone earlier made a possible straw man arguement tarring Rick Santorum. Stop it. At least Santorum will fight. And libertarian ignorance is silly.
Which seems to me to be Helen’s problem here. She’s got a point to a degree, but she’s a libertarian. LaSuthenBoy is right. Why can’t we win? Because we’re not gutsy enough, not courageous enough to follow through on our moral training and instincts.
The price of being right is not defeat. The price of being a snooty libertarian is defeat.
My chief question about Cain right now is not did he engage in the sin of adultery a few years back. Its how does he stand on the social issues of abortion and border control and the vast number of other issues. And for those who say: focus on the money. I am. Zero border control is going to slam the economy even if wdo the right thing with the debt. Abortion has already slammed the economy big time. (most of our economic problems would be vastly smaller or non-existent if Roe v. Wade had not joined Dred Scott in the annals of infamy.)
That’s one way of looking at it. What are the practical, policy-affecting consequences of whatever Cain is being accused of? Are we saying “that kind of person” doesn’t “deserve” to be President? Or are we saying he would make a lousy President?
OK, if we’re going to play the Democrat’s game, that must mean we’re going to dig up dirt on Obama and any other Dem who runs for President. If we can’t find any actual dirt, we’ll use oblique accusations and smears.
Oh, wait – we’ve been doing that and nobody’s paying attention except us. The “birther” conspiracy made us look ridiculous. Attempts to “prove” that Obama’s a Muslim have made us look ridiculous. Attempts to “prove” that Obama’s performance in college, both as a student and as a teacher, was sub-standard, have made us look ridiculous. We haven’t found any certain evidence of misbehavior during his Chicago days. We haven’t found anyone who’ll swear that Obama was a druggie back in high school. We haven’t managed to dredge up any working women who were sexually harrassed by him.
So – where’s all the mud we’re supposed to sling at our opponents? Where’s our gotcha, our October surprise? If we assume (as I do) that the kind of people who become politicians always have skeletons in their close, why are we so lousy at finding them and hanging them around our opponents’ necks? That we don’t have a complicit news media working for us is obviously one reason. We could produce solid evidence that Obama is a baby-eating Satan-worshipper and the media would ignore it. But we never come up with anything that good. Why can’t we dig up sleaze?
I don’t think the birthers made us look silly. Rather, the Obama campaign after asserting that there was no long form birth certificate, was revealed to be lying.
I don’t care for politicans who lie. I have a hard enough time with politicians who tell too, too, careful truths, and mix it with statements that sound good and are meaningless (puffery).
Your mileage may differ. “There you go again.” worked for Reagan, revealing Mondale to be a serial liar.
This is the exact reason I love this site! Can only assume that the majority of readers of this site is conservatives. Yet we’re able to disagree with one another & express our views without some presumptive conservative views. Thank you to both Andrew Klavan & Dr. Helen Smith – points taken. We shouldn’t act like doormat when attack. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect better of those wanting to represent us.
DR. H is wrong, wrong, wrong. You fall into the Alinsky trap this way as well. If you espouse morality but you don’t expect it in the political realm you are creating an old boy’s network of people who pat themselves on the back for their morality in private and do what they want in public. Then the Alinskyites can say they truly represent the people and their opposition aren’t just hypocrites but psychopaths.
The best way to deal with Alinskyites is to constantly tear away at the individual gains made by being a leftist. If the leftist truly believes that government and/or the collective is better able to manage society he truly believes he/she does not need to have personal power. Always make sure that the Leftist provides a list of people they know can do the job and ask them to step down to set the proper example. MAKE THE LEFTIST PROVE HE BELIEVES IN THE COLLECTIVE HIMSELF AND NOT WHAT HE THINKS HE CAN GAIN BY ESPOUSING ITS CAUSE.
Of course we should our candidates to a high standard. The amazing thing is that anyone thinks there is any evidence of Cain’s guilt.
There is none.
“The best way to deal with Alinskyites is to constantly tear away at the individual gains made by being a leftist.”
Amen… But may I add my own two cents?
By doing so you expose the fact that leftists only follow one rule: that rule being that anything is allowed so long as it allows the left to gain and hold onto more power… be it through the acquisition of wealth by governmental means… or the destruction of individual freedoms… or the holding of office by a perpetual political class.
The Problem with Alinskyites is that they make us play by our rules while they only have one rule to play by (the above rule I just mentioned). We need to not only expose their ill-gotten gains that they and their friends make but show the people that this is systematic… and that this is a systematic system of theft.
Bravo, Dr. Helen. Your last line says it all. And it seems to me that the definition of “honor” has been twisted to mean “doormat”.
Mr. Klavan’s approach is what Juan McCain took to his defeat. Obama has sooo much baggage (cocaine use, hanging out with known terrorists, sitting in a racist church for 20 years) and McCain gave him a walk on all of it. A walk to the White House and economic disaster.
The Republican party has taken the same approach as the government in military affairs since WWII. Take the high road, win hearts and minds, be better than the other side. Bullshit. Either fight to win or stay home.
This is a political attack coming from the Democrat Party High Command.
They want Cain out and they want him out now.
He is a threat to Ebola and to Democrats in general.
They are doing an October Surprise a year early because they have no choice. Cain is going to get the nomination unless they stop him now. Ebola can’t beat Cain, but he may beat Mitt Marshmallow.
The only thing for Cain to do is to stop this attack now with a quick and massive counter-attack.
Notice how none of the GOP rivals are coming to Cain’s defense? They want Cain out, too.
Perhaps Mr. Klavan has a message for them, too.
The answer isn’t either extreme. Klavan argues for moral purity. Smith argues for satan’s own playbook. The best approach is in the middle.
So far, it simply isn’t possible to tell whether Herman Cain is at fault in any or all of the claims. There certainly is some smoke (two settlements and one woman explicitly speaking out), but everything is so flawed (no details on the small settlements, and the woman’s story isn’t compelling and her lawyer is a bottom-feeder) that anybody would be foolish to say they know anything about it for sure.
Moreover, the complicity of the msm colors everything.
Conservatives make a mistake to blindly accept that Cain is as pure as the driven snow. Why must everything the man says be taken as the gospel truth? It’s naive and counterproductive. My own view is that he is human. It wouldn’t shock me to learn he made some passes at women. If that’s all, it wouldn’t be a disqualifier, in my opinion. If he is a serial player, well, that would make him a morally high-risk candidate on top of being a high-risk candidate in several other regards. If he was a giant in every other respect, he might even merit a pass for being a player. But he’s not a giant in any respect.
Moreover, Cain has made unnerving mistakes in the handling of the situations. His actions don’t align very well with a totally innocent man. The changing stories are problematic. Even more problematic from a politial perspective is that in his first “crisis”, he isn’t doing any better than C- work.
It isn’t often that I disagree with Dr. Helen, but an occasion has come.
Our candidates must be put through the gauntlet before we nominate them. The gauntlet is out there, waiting for our nominee, whoever he proves to be — and if he can’t handle it properly, he’ll lose resoundingly, as the power of the Legacy Media to destroy a man is no less than it was in 1964.
A dear friend put it this way, about twenty years ago:
The press has “bumped” Herman Cain, and he spurted a jet that has caused them to lock their teeth onto him. It wasn’t necessary, but Cain didn’t — and apparently still doesn’t — understand that the only profitable response to a vicious smear is an immediate, all-stops-out counterattack. At this point, it’s highly unlikely that he can stop the bleeding, and equally unlikely that conservatives’ confidence in him can be fully restored.
Of course we mustn’t take the Left’s accusations at face value; reciprocal investigation of the accuser is mandatory, and must be carried out ruthlessly. But no one, in this day, can win a national office who hasn’t developed the “chops” required to confront and defeat malicious accusations.
Thank you! It’s nice to see a whiff of reality on these pages which for the past few days has been stuck in some wacky Mr Smith Goes to Washington loop.
But then you are shrink, used to watching nice people and their self defeating behavior. so you can spot this silliness more easily than many others can.
Much of the pajamas media’s response to this crisis reminds me of Pontius Pilate, who presided at the trial of Jesus and, despite stating that he personally found him not guilty of a crime meriting death, handed him over to crucifixion anyway.
I guess they think the can just wash their hands and then the magic fairy will prevent the democrats from doing exactly the same thing to the actual GOP nominee.
Good point! And watch how quickly they start claiming that it doesn’t matter if Cain ACTUALLY did what he was accused of, but only that his response to being savaged was somehow inadequate.
Can we say that about Newt? His major sin appears to have been that he was a cad and a louse to his wife.
He knows how Washinton works (vs. Cain), he’s more conservative than Romney and he’s a better debater than Perry.
” . . but don’t forget, the Christians won!”
Thomasina Paine
Deathrace 2000
I would love to be the good guy, to wear the white hat. Unfortunately that will only get 1/4 to 1/3 of the voters, the people that have firm principles they live by. Where it kills you is with the shiftless middle, the swing voters. The voters who rather than have a quiding principle evaluate every issue and candidate on every issue. These are the people who can’t see your hat, and would care if they did.
This isn’t about protecting Cain, an imperfect candidate at best. This is about making the case on the moral hypocricy of the left in creating a double standard for sexual harrassment.
Since when do we set our standards to match those of the party of Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton?
If Kalvan had been arguing against conservatives doing what liberals do – excusing behavior from their side while condemning the same thing from their opponents – then I would agree. Hypocrisy has taken some toll on liberalism, no matter how rapidly the MSM licks liberals’ boots. If Cain is guilty, then he is guilty, and no one should defend him.
But at this point it is far from clear that Cain is guilty. The only person willing to come forth is someone with a history of job instability and financial woes, and who is backed by a radical-left lawyer. The others are hiding behind anonymity, which is suspicious. One less-than-credible witness and three no-shows is not much of an argument against Cain.
BTW: I am no supporter of Cain, and will not vote for him if he is the GOP nominee. But so far this smells like a Clarence Thomas-style smear job. I prefer to beat Cain on his unworkable 9-9-9 plan and his disinterest in foreign affairs.
“…and will not vote for him if he is the GOP nominee”
Then you condemn us to more of the same and destroy this great nation in the process, WHOEVER the nominee is.
America CANNOT AFFORD your fit of pique.
America CANNOT AFFORD your fit of pique.
Why is it always assumed that the voter has an obligation to vote for whatever candidate the Beltway Machine chooses, but the idiots at the top never seem to have any obligation to choose an acceptable candidate that we can feel good voting for.
It’s not a one-way road, and the sooner the Establishment recognizes this, the better.
As a Machiavellian, I broadly agree with the spirit of this article, but not the letter.
Ask yourself: what would Machiavelli do? (if not Machiavelli, then any winner that you take as a role model.)
I submit that Machiavelli would take a careful look at Herman Cain and ask: is he defensible? If he is (and it might be too early to tell) then put all what you have got into defending him. If he isn’t, dump him.
(I wish Mr. Cain the best that he can achieve, but if he can’t achieve much … that’s too bad!)
Maybe Mr. Green is closer to a Machiavellian position in practice, though not in spirit.
Doing what is right is always the proper thing to do. I can’t figure out why people want to abandon integrity and honor in the search for power.
The first definition of “integrity” is “adherence to moral and ethical principles.” Unless the principles you are fighting for are submission and serfdom, fighting back *is* integrity.
Which is the more clear-and-present danger to us … that these allegations are true, or that we will continue to have our freedom and wallets “groped” by the professional/political complex, who treat our institutions of governance as their personal arena for dodge-ball games?
Herman Cain is the candidate that is the least tied to the professional/political complex … and refuses to play by its rules.
He has the potential to totally upset the games of the DC political league … and his opponents know it, fear it, and are trying to stop him the only way they can … by the generous application of the same intellectual dishonesty that they used to advance their resumes and bank accounts at our expense.
That intellectual dishonesty is REAL … and it is the greatest threat to our continued existence as a nation of liberty and enterprise.
Yes, we need to be better than they are.
Let’s start with being intellectually honest with ourselves, wait for some FACTS to be presented before we throw Mr. Cain under the bus … and NOT LET THE DC WEASELS AND THE JACKALS OF THE FOURTH ESTATE DISTRACT US WITH GOTCHA! POLITICS, FROM PUTTING AN END TO THEIR POLITICS-AS-USUAL!
I also was extremely disappointed by Klavan’s piece, and usually I agree with him. We face an enemy that will stoop to NOTHING to win, while we have it in our power to propel its death throes. We MUST fight fire with fire. Always playing fair with an enemy that is as low as they come means always losing. We’ll never save the country this way. We’ve been playing fair for decades and where has that gotten us?
Dr. Helen, you and your commenters seem to have read a different post than I did. I didn’t read where Klavan said that we should not fight back, or not say mean things about the other guys, or not engage in negative campaigning, or excuse Leftists for bad acts, or not defend ourselves when people lie about us. He didn’t say any of those things.
What he said is that we should live up to our own reasonable standards of ethics. The Right should live up to our own stated standards rather than doing what the Left does, which is to hold up ridiculously high standards for everyone else so that they can always find some moral flaw to attack in anyone they want to attack, yet excuse themselves and their political heroes from those standards.
I oppose that sort of hypocrisy on principle, yet the Right should avoid it for pragmatic reasons as well. You can’t possibly make that strategy work unless you have control over almost all of the opinion-making institutions.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/09/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-f-bomb/
Jeff Goldstein noted this well back in 2009.
Exactly. I’m tired of this holier-than-thou attitude that calls for supposedly good people to stand by while conservatives are savaged by the dens and their attack dogs in the press.
To those of you who think it makes you look honorable or principled, I say horse-puckie. You look like SAPS and guilty of everything you have been accused of doing. I am especially tired of the beltway wusses like the “genuis” Karl Rove. He and his ilk kowtow to the lies and savagery of the MSM and dems. Karl anyone-who-opposes-amnesty-hates-brown-people Rove finally acknowledged that he made a mistake in not defending Bush and the White House against the vicious dem attack machine. Really?! It only took 8 YEARS to figure that out!!! And frankly, if they only damaged themselves, I wouldn’t give a crap. To he!! with Rove and fellow travelers. Their timidity and obsequiousness undercut real conservatives and republicans who would like to advance the cause of limited government and self reliance. Because of hacks like Rove, I understand why God made Moses wander thru the desert for 40 years to rid the people of their slave mentality.
Bravo, Dr. The demonic blond’s story and set up are ludicrous as are the others. I will no longer listen or blog to the “conservatives” who are joining the hanging. It’s little wonder that politicians don’t stand up when their backers fold like paper dolls.
I believe the Donks and their Media agents established the Gennifer Flowers standard coming around twenty years ago. What was OK for Bubba, is good for everyone else who seeks the office. Now lets get on with the real game at hand.
You morons are indeed in trouble if Herman Cain is your best candidate. Oh, that’s right…you’re the same party that nominated an ignorant piece of white trash as Vice-President, started a war on false pretenses that killed tens of thousands of innocent people, exposed the identity of a covert CIA agent for purely political reasons, go on and on about personal responsibility and how much you hate government while supporting government telling a woman what she can do with her body, endlessly spew ignorant, hate-filled screeds, and constantly vote against your best interests. What a pathetic group of sheeple.
As opposed to putting our economy into the tank, through wealth-redistribution rhetoric spooking businesses into cutting back … radical environmentalism that led to energy-price spikes just before the last Presidential election … telling us that a $900B political slush fund was “stimulus” that would save the economy and keep unemployment below 8%, and asking us to do it again after it’s failure was evident?
Morons don’t learn from their failures, and change their ways. They keep changing BACK to the failed policies of the past.
No sheep here … but I do see a parrot, who repeats the already debunked lies of the “betters” who own him …
… wanna cracker?
Trolls are rarely this honest.
And rarely this stupid. This one isn’t just swallowing the kool-aid, he’s gagging on it.
If they can kill you with your own rulebook, there is something wrong with that rulebook.
I have to disagree. I think Klavan is right. As one of the commenters above said “But, we must overcome them…not become them.”
It is entirely possible to wage a brutal, no holds barred, war of attrition on them and win. By that I mean destroy the left.
Winning in 2012 should be a cake walk considering that the Obama Administration has been putting together GOP ads on a daily basis. How much footage of the Occupy riots, rapes, communism signs, and incoherent ramblings coupled with a list of the Dems that embraced them; Obama foremost. Footage and audio of any or all of the left wing nuts he has for friends, appointments, aquaintances etc. . Lists of the money he has stolen and given away to unions and crony capitalists…….
I could go on and on.
We could easily wage a brutal war against them using the truth.
Being moral doesnt mean falling on your sword or being soft. In fact, it takes more strength, so lets make a rock-hard fist and use it.
I am of 2 minds about this. If we use all their tactics, even the dishonest and illegal ones, and refuse to clean out our own bad apples, then how are we any better than them. Where I do go along though is we should have no false gentlemenly rules that keep us from fighting back. Attack the left all we can, but do it with the truth, and fight back viciously, but with the truth. Dont worry about what is unseemly, or not gentlemenly, or not fair, but we must always worry about what is true and right. Briebart is a good example, he isn’t gentlemenly, and the left does not think he is very fair, but he is truthful and right, and that should be enough. We should not tell actual lies, like the left does, but we should not flinch from hitting them with the truth, no matter how unseemly, negative, or underhanded, the attack appears to be.
I noted with dismay that, once again, the Democratic smear machine has succeeded in thwarting the campaign of a very good person. And they are so good at it and so successful, that they don’t even try that hard, anymore, to cover their tracks:
Ann Coulter revealed just yesterday that some female Democratic operative who had formerly worked for the NRA got ahold of Cain’s file, somehow and gave it to Obama’s minions who leaked it to Politico. Knowing the specifics in the file, they were then able to break the story, albeit without oficial facts to back it up. Of course, they didn’t need official facts–only accusations.
Ann also pointed out that Bialek lives in the same building as David Axelrod and that the other women who was named works for the Obama administration and has a history of Democratic advocacy. Also, coincidentally, her son works for Politico!
Really, only the public can put an end to this tactic. It’s time they start seeing through the transparent skullduggery of the Dems.
I don’t expect y’all to agree with what follows, but I’d like to offer a few things to chew on:
1. The liberal “conspiracy” to get Herman Cain. Trust me, with the exception of Rick Santorum, there’s nobody Barack Obama would rather face in 2012 than a blustering, poorly informed Trumpite who’s never been elected, has no national campaign framework, alienates certain sectors of your constituency by his color and his apparent disrespect for women, has nowhere close to the financial backing of the Mittster, and has no ties to the Republican establishment.
2. The liberal media. When was the last time the national news was brought to you by the Socialist Workers’ Party, labor unions, the buy-China industry and Hezbollah? Face it: All the major sponsors of the nightly news and almost all American media come from the Fortune 500 and local furniture stores. Any news person who brings a consistently left-leaning perspective would be out of a job so fast his whole family’s heads would spin. And let me know when a liberal cracks the Top 10 of AM talk-radio hosts; I’ll be here holding my breath. So why is it the media strike you as so left-biased? Consider, just consider, the possibility that the answer lies within.
3. The notion that the poor, chronic victim set is what’s holding America back. With what, their vast teams of D.C. lobbyists and national campaign networking clout?
4. Saul Alinsky. I’ve been a straight-ticket-voting, convivial Democrat for 40 years. I have never met a Dem who knows who Alinsky is, let alone cites his worldview approvingly. Wouldn’t there be an example of one elected Democrat with a record of saying something nice about him if he is so influential? Or is the Democratic Party just too damn well-organized?
5. The double standard of sex scandals. Haven’t you noticed that both parties tend to have the occasional sex scandal, and that there’s no party line pattern to the outcome? Some Republicans get one and continue serving (Vitter, Craig), and some are forced out (Foley, Ensign). Some Democrats get one and continue serving (Clinton, Frank) and some are forced out (Weiner, Spitzer). Scuse me, isn’t it Republicans who are supposed to complain about the other team’s use of the victim card?
6. Obama’s resistance to scandal. There is a general sense of disappointment here that Republicans have been unable to pin a major scandal on Barack Obama. Let me repeat: Many of you who seem to consider yourself patriots are disappointed that the President of the United States is not implicated in a scandal.
That’s all I got time for. Enjoy.