Here are a few things that I think don’t quite compute.
a) The now familiar Palin/Edwards dichotomy. John McCain was damned for picking Sarah Palin who had not finished her first term as governor, and had previously only been elected to local political offices and served on a state commission.
Her middle American ‘you betcha’ twang, NASCAR persona, good looks, and occasional deer-in-the-headlines interviews with hostile anchor people, coupled with the kids, conservative creed, Christianity, and 19th century husband, sickened—there is no other word for it— the DC-New York punditocracy. Yes, they concluded, she really was from Wasilla. Yuk.
So we got everything in the media from the maverick McCain suddenly as cynical sell-out who settled for third-best, to Palin, the clueless Alaskan yokel.
In contrast, to this day, there is no in-depth analysis of Kerry’s disastrous pick of the first-term, uninformed Senator Edwards as his VP choice in 2004. And it took the National Enquirer to inform us of his later conspiratorial lying and bribery involving his illegitimate child—sordid facts apparently well known to—and hushed up by—the mainstream media. Remember, later presidential candidate Edwards was not just inexperienced, but as a confessed wonk, did not open a book. He was the owner of a mansion who preached about “two-nations” inequality, and he alternately used and humiliated his alternately heroic and conniving cancer-stricken spouse.
b) The responsible Times. For much of 2002-8, the New York Times leaked classified information about U.S. policy in the war on terror and gave up on Iraq (though John Burns, its military correspondent, was quite professional and courageous). Indeed, the serial story of Iraq was the IED, not the heroic capture of Fallujah or the stunning success of the surge. The Times gave a discount to Moveon.org to run its “General Betray-Us” ads at a time thousands of young Americans were fighting for their lives during the surge.
And now? The Times admirably sat on advanced warning of the current NATO offensive in Afghanistan; its editor emphasized that the paper was “responsible” in reporting matters of national security (i.e. the Times does not leak). Our current efforts in Helmand Province now are portrayed in the media in the manner of Patton’s WWII offensives—thank God for that.
c) The war on terror. For much of the Bush administration, one would have thought the Constitution had been shredded. My God—Tribunals! Renditions! Guantanamo! Patriot Act! Intercepts! Wiretaps! Iraq! Predator drones!
Indeed, for each of those ACLU talking points, then candidate Obama reflected the media outrage and damned these protocols. Yet suddenly, there is no in-depth critical analysis of these policies. Most are now kept and apparently thought by government and media to be of both utility and morality by virtue that Obama adopted them.
In some cases, rhetoric suffices. Guantanamo is now “virtually” closed, in the manner KSM will be virtually tried in New York. Assert rather than enact and a sort of virtual nirvana follows in the media.
Not long ago, we were to charge or investigate former administration and CIA officials for ordering the waterboarding of three confessed terrorists, among them Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the proud father of 9/11. And now? The number of Predator drone assassination missions has increased enormously. Apparently in this new age of war as a criminal justice matter, somehow the Bush-era coerced interrogations of confessed mass-murderers deserved popular outrage and were to be considered crimes, while the judge/jury/executioner sentences passed down on suspected terrorists (again, dead men need no Miranda rights)—and anyone in their general vicinity when the hellfire missile hits—are well, like renditions and tribunals, suddenly problematic.
d) Good, then bad, DC. A year ago, government was at last working. Supermajorities were in both houses of congress. The Senate was filibuster proof, in a way the poor Republicans had not been able to achieve during the 2005 Bush efforts to reform Social Security.
Obama was on nearly every magazine cover, his visage popped up on the evening newscasts. Pundits wrote puff pieces about “inside” interviews. Health care, cap and trade, borrowing, bail-outs, more stimuli, cash for clunkers, all this and more needed no Republican input with such supermajorities in congress.
The system was working as it was designed; to paraphrase the president, ‘we won and you lost’. A recalcitrant liberal Senator here and there could always be bought off with a $300 million earmark. Polls hit near 70% approval. The Europeans went ga-ga. Government was moving again.
I think you’re holding back.
Philosophy of hypocrisy?
Hmmm. I don’t know, VDH. I think it’s metastasis of sophistry, perhaps instead.
You know, VDH…you and I are of an age where we can remember when one of the worst things that could be said about you, was…you were a liar. One could not depend on your word. You couldn’t be trusted.
When our entrenched media (I won’t call them “mainstream”), deliberately buries a story (John Edwards, Climategate, Baghdad Bob, Van Jones, Jeremiah Wright) in order to tilt public opinion, that’s sophistry.
When they instead pick on Trig Palin, or Cindy McCain, …that’s not hypocrisy, that’s vile and despicable. But, it’s part and parcel of the same sophistry.
Leftists have long ago passed hypocrisy on the spectrum of evil. They adopt a smug and pedantic aura of moral superiority, while lying, cheating, stealing the information stream in all the popular culture places where mass dissemination of our “facts” and “news” are acquired.
Where we go to formulate our opinions about how to self-govern this land of ours. It is not, I believe, my dear VDH…a matter of them holding “opposing” views when it comes to “them” and “us”. Rather, it is holding one view and then being willing to advance that view through every method of deceit available. The former would be hypocrisy, the latter sophistry…by any means necessary.
One of the differences between elites and common folk is that the former are adept at avoiding the penalties that would otherwise accrue through law-breaking and aberrant behaviour. Consider how many of our elected officials come armed with a law degree. Those sworn to uphold justice spend most of their time obstructing it for personal gain. Avoiding penalties might be lucrative in the short term, but it is not virtuous.
The common man, on the other hand, knows that it is wiser to play by the rules. He doesn’t have the luxury of hiring a lawyer every time he gets into trouble. He becomes virtuous by habit. The average Joe pays his bills on time, takes personal responsibility for his actions, and abides by the law. The common citizen of this country is in all ways the moral superior of his so-called betters.
What makes a Sarah Palin so attractive to middle America is that she lives by the values we hold dear. She’s one of us, and we recognize our own. Our republic would be much healthier if we judged our leaders by the content of their character over the slippery rhetoric they use to seduce us.
In a tribal society leaders like ours would be driven from the village under a hail of sticks and stones. It’s one of the curses of modernity that parasites seem to find their niche at the top of the food chain. The tea party movement seems to be a manifestation of the angry villagers of old. We’ve had enough. There is a line beyond which we will not be pushed.
VDH, Your Tragic/Therapeutic dichotomy is essential to understand our current world. I would like to add the concept of the fountain of youth that the therapeutic crowd always wants to tap into. Hence we got 19 th Century Romanticism and Sturm and Drang movements and the 20th century Rock and Roll and Generation 68. It doesn’t matter what the results are as long as you trying to make a difference, make a statement, be real and and not a fake. Very important is not to be bourgeois. In this world view John Edwards is just Rock and Roll, and John Kerry was real when he testified to Congress as a Vietnam Veteran, but Sarah Palin is a complete square because see preaches common sense. If she would have been ugly she would have been an old bore too.
Now this is all fine if one is a teenager or a twenty something. However the current pundits are 40/50/60 plus. It is a real baby boomer thing. They can not accept getting old and accept ‘old’ ideas. They want to be Young Werther forever instead of realizing Faustian reality.
Dr. Hanson, (do I have this right?)
The Western Enlightened believe in a tragic reality defined by Greek-Jewish-Gothic Christian sensibilities, including openness to greater ground. Thus we are curious.
Liberals believe in a therapeutic utopia defined by adherence to anti-reason, for they must believe that which can’t be, will. Utopias cannot come because the nature of man doesn’t change.
But gods can change nature. Gods can make utopias happen! And the end justifies the means when you are a god. Thus, the gods of liberal utopias are incapable of being hypocrites. Because they think and say so.
Generally speaking, this is why people are so incurious during the casual encounter. Not, “Where do you come from and where are you going?” It’s, “SILENT: We’re all supposed to be equal, thus you compete for the air I breathe, so be hell and gone!”
Liberal utopia belief makes hellish scoundrels of us all. It ends up with Malthusian pogroms of cleansing unfavored brethren.
Western Enlightenment, while rooted in tragic views requiring constant checks and balances against evil… in the end is uplifting towards one or the other. It makes people curious. “Say, you could be a bad fellow, but by Jove! What good have you in store for us? What, dear stranger, are you famous for? What would you like to be famous for? Not hypocrisy like those dreadful human haters! Tell me about yourself!”
Some day, her Professor?
Poorly read and intellectually shallow politicians like Barack Obama and John Edwards are taking advantage of the lowered academic standards of roughly the last forty years. The softer disciplines have often become a total joke. A liberal arts degree from an “elite” institution is normally nothing to brag home about. It’s fraudulent. The recipient couldn’t follow a logical argument if their life depended on it. Our nation is paying an awful price for the affirmative action policies enacted in the mid to late 1960s. Blacks and other politically protected minorities were first to jump on the bandwagon. The whites joined the fun by no later than 1975. It’s been downhill since then. The disastrous 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Griggs vs. Duke Power, dramatically made things much worse. It empowered some very nasty people in the academic world. As a practical manner, the typical American had to attend college to obtain a good paying job. Merely passing the appropriate tests was no longer deemed sufficient.
VDH:
Truth matters, but to most of those mentioned above the truth is secondary to political ambition and power. No matter what the ideology, those hungry for power will do whatever is necessary to get it. For those like Edwards, Obama or the New York Times the truth is a usefull ingredient to selling a line of BS now matter how fanciful but it need not be the whole truth or even a relevant truth, just enough to make it pallatable to the masses of the lower classes.
However as we are seeing these days the so called lower classes are recognising this methodology of using partial truths and exposing them for what they are; lies. Now it is time for the liars to pay for their lies and the real, whole truth be revealed, after all there are consequences to every action and the penalty for lying is severe. Now, none shall escape the truth. Governments are made up of men and despite all of their bloviating about how usefull they are, all men are made to pay for their crimes one way or the other and on every level, local, state or national. Watch what happens to Arnold in your state, he’s already famous and there are others who are not so famous but they will all be exposed for their greedy lying ways.
Arnolds fate will be worse than that of Grey Davis who as you know was removed from office for lying.
Boy professor, I’m glad that you’re not describing a doom and gloom future for us again. You do it so well. Thanks to your last post, I was thinking about buying a hoe and jumping on box cars going from town to town working gardens for meals.
I learned about Sol Alinsky just last year. From what I understand, he advocates isolating opponents and demonizing them. This tactic, that may have been introduced surreptitiously to leftists in the 60s, has fully bloomed. If not used on purpose to gain power, maybe it’s used unconsciously today. So the right is demonized and the left gets a pass. Bias may have been internalized.
This is the last week of Black History Month. I remember Dr. King saying we should look forward to all being together…black, white, Jew, gentile… I think we were getting there. True, some (of each race) continued to hate but the rhetoric became conciliatory or so it seemed to me.
But since Obama came along, Olberman, Matthews, Newsweek, etc, etc, etc started demonizing…calling millions racist and now the conciliation seems in the distant past. So at the latest CPAC meeting, a black man calls a white man a racist and the white man calls the black man a punk and people cheer.
If only Obama had appreciated Dr. King instead of Rev. Wright, all might have been different.
“If only Obama had appreciated Dr. King instead of Rev. Wright, all might have been different.”
Barack Obama does appreciate Martin Luther King, Jr.—and that’s the problem. The assassinated civil rights leader was a convinced wealth redistributionist and advocated a radial reform of the American economy. His PhD was fraudulent obtained. King was also a flagrant plagiarizer. He more than hinted that he believed in affirmative action. King accomplished a lot of good in the Old South. Unfortunately, he caused an enormous amount of harm when he focused more on the northern states. King lacked the education to take it to the next level. And the American public was increasingly becoming aware of this harsh fact. The Gallup pollsters found out that he was no longer ranked among the top ten most admired Americans. I am convinced that by the time of King’s murder—he was more useful to the left-wing establishment as a dead martyr than a live advocate of its agenda.
It’s time to face the sad and sordid fact that Jeremiah Wright’s violent, hate-filled “God Damn America” is a mindset and sentiment far more widely shared and deeply felt by those who voted for Obama than we could possibly ever have imagined.
There’s nothing hypocritical about this hate. It’s ugly to the bone.
Greetings:
I live in the San Francisco Bay area. The local (San Jose) NBC affiliate is currently running a self-promotional commercial in which their Latina news anchor asserts that “we are advocates”. I thought so. And, thanks for clearing that up.
I grew up in a cattle-ranching area. One town in a LARGE county.
A few hundred people, thousands and thousands of cattle.
For many years my summer job was based on a hand-shake with the ranch owner.
While a senior in high-school, one of my 22 classmates told a lie trying to save his skin. And got a classmate in legal trouble.
He left on his own right after graduation. Never to return.
Being shunned by the entire population makes you very lonely.
How I wish the same principle could be applied to ALL the “elites”, media or government or educational or what-ever.
“But “just politics” does not quite explain the advocacy of the media, the universities, the foundations, the arts, the legal community, the judiciary, and creative communities, whose zealotry is reserved for the Left.”
Indeed not. Fenton Communications, http://www.fenton.com/ sure does.
This is the company used to:
• fabricate environmental data, specifically the “hockey stick” chart for “climate change”
• “making baby bottles safer” using their own cooked test results for BHP in plastic causing nation wide recalls while there was not one result published in Pedaetric Journals (in Canada)
• the UN Environmental program
and lists of other initiatives.
They are powerful and deceitful, and undermine the country, while Democrats and class action lawyers make full use of their diabolical services.
That’s the opponent to overcome for this November and part of the explanation for Left wing zealotry.
Are gems such as VDH’s articles, and these forums enough of a glimmer to shine a light on the direction needed to overcome the statists who threaten the well being of the USA?
VDH:
Your essays excel at pointing out and analyzing the problem; especially through the lens of history.
But what are the solutions to our problems?
The first one that comes to mind is a crushing defeat for the Dems in 2010. But to do so I think there needs to be a positive agenda.
What % of this administration is 100% devoted to spin?
How many thousands of people work full-time as liars?
How many hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually covering up self-made problems, creating smoke and mirrors to confuse the citizenry, rewriting history, claiming credit where none is due, writing “news” articles…..all paid for by us, and all designed to hide what they are really doing?
Was there ever a government this devoted to propaganda, which now appears to be the dominant field of study in Ivy League colleges.
This standard political speech sums up the liberal position: Life is troubling; We will save you; It will take some time and your full cooperation.
Excerpt from A Political Speech: Troubling Times
It appears that the word “taqiyya” has been adopted into the English to assist all our politicians not to just stretch the truth but to down right lie — the muslim word “taqiyya” states there is nothing wrong with lying if need be for protection or to make a point!!!!!!
Is Edwards a schmuck who does not get the grief he deserves from the lefty press? for sure.
But the hypocrisy here is that Obama immediately get lumped in with Edwards and the further hypocrisy is that this is a guy surging in Afghanistan and advocating nuclear power and offshore drilling.
So all the angst about how Palin is treated can be turned back on you guys with Obama. Is hypocrisy the HUMAN, political condition?
Apparently.
Mr. Garland,
The speech was satire. Is your point fake as well?
Essential vdh.
At any level in any population of people (animals) you have a normal distribution of any human condition you can think of. For example a John Edwards, weak and not responsible at one end and at the other a Sarah Palin, strong, determined, unafraid, if afraid it is with courage, competitive, healthy—a meat eater which gives her brain an advantage. Also a woman—that makes her traits even more valuable than one would suspect from a woman.
Most of but not all of the “elites” are not so. Not elite in anything they do. They have the unhappy task of trying to run in front of the crowd and mostly have to look back to see which direction the crowd is going— to maintain their position. They are a direction vane to the crowd’s wind. It also has to be the “right” crowd. They have the unhappy burden of being essentially parasitic and they know it.
It is a normal human defense mechanism to rationalize and minimize ones weakness and in the very “weak” and cowardly people—the attacking of others who may not show this weakness is the rationalization that keeps the weak together.
A group of elites are closer to a pack of hounds in acting and thinking. They excite each other and bay at nothing of consequence. Their collective noise and barking gives them courage to hunt but they are in a pen, well fed and watered, and eventually simply lie down in the shade until something else excites them.
What does the above mean?— nothing!, nothing at all. An exercise in language and use of words instead of action that gives explanation to something that simply should be stepped on. Would have been stamped out in earlier times. Weakness and perfidy has always in the end met its destruction.
Americans are different than the Euros. A natural selection process went on to attract the strong. Thought of as the weak and limited by their countries who gave them to us or sent them to us with their elitist and static worlds choking them. We are now many generations away from most of those early Americans. Damm to bad for us.
The key question is who will survive when the going gets tough and the results of the left wing Marxist idiots, like the BHOs begin to destroy the very people who supported it. They are the weakest and the least able to take care of themselves. They assume the Marxist Utopian fairy ideas will take care of them to fill in their weakness.
Not so in real history. They are simply fire watchers, keepers of the flame who will burn when they fall in it. They do not know that. Who cares it is simply history repeating itself.
Who will begin to pull the plug on their little pools of modernism built by others like the Palins, the the real Americans that built America that allows them, the “elites” to float as if their world as they know it or think they know it will not disappear.
They, the oblivious elites will be fodder for the movement. Useful idiots who will be the first to get run over in the stampede for anything of value left including food.
The shelves will be empty. What to do? What to do? Can AA grow a tomato? They will be looking for masters to take care of them.—because we blew it.
What are those loan guarantees worth with Yucca Mt, closed so that the nuclear waste cannot be disposed of, So far the Interior Department has
approved one well on the entire Alaskan North Slope, why spend three months, deciding on Afghanistan, then shortening the time for a successful mission
Edwards was just an earlier vanilla flavor of ‘hope and change’, promising the siren song of free health care, closing Gitmo, et al, just as fraudulent as the current one. I guess this is why a real reformer, with concern for the soldiers and sailors and small businessman, must be pilloried with the most outrageous lies, forced between going bankrupt and resigning her office, ironically driving
into a more proactive stand of the issues of the day.
VDH – pardon this slightly rambling brain dump which your excellent essay has triggered:
People, in time, are generally pretty good at sniffing out hypocrisy. The problem is that that alone does not suffice in defeating it. As Dwight points out hypocrisy is a human problem, not just a party problem. It just so happens the the Dems have cornered the market recently and have raised it (enabled by a collusive media/academic elite) to a fine art. They are so married to a narrow ideological construct, they have no option but to constantly contradict themselves as they pursue their quest for global oligarchy. That is ultimately their greatest weakness, and why their grand schemes always fail, but they do a lot of damage in the meantime… And we have yet to declare ourselves clearly opposed to the ideology of Jihadism in the same way that we opposed communism in the 20th century. Meanwhile autocratic powers like China, Russia and Iran are maneuvering towards regional and even global hegemony, yet we seem unable to recognize this or take an explicit stand against it…
In a high volume, high intensity world characterized by rapid change and new kinds of social stresses, conservatives need to modernize their narrative. Absent a vision that is compelling to 21st century urban man, apathy sets in and people resign themselves to the rule of the hypocrites. The idea that freedom depends on strenth, which depends on prosperity, which deepends on freedom is enough for those of us with a ‘tragic’ vision of life. But we must also convince the therapeutic-minded that we believe in strength not only for its own sake, but in strength in the service of the good. It is a slippery slope because ‘the good’ can be defined very broadly. But it shouldn’t be too hard to convince centrist independents, and even some liberals that conservatives also hope for an ever brighter future for all of mankind too, that we care about the environment, global poverty and oppression also. The key is to find a way to enable real ‘progress’ on those fronts (as opposed to the global governance schemes envisioned by the left) while protecting our own freedoms and continually enhancing our strenths at the same time. The two must go together. It’s actually a pretty compelling narrative when you think about it. It just needs to be packaged the right way.
Currently in first place for quote of the year in my book.
This is so much of the problem. We’ve gotten far to used to hearing people talk and not watching people do. Of course it’s not just limited to politics, corporate culture is infected with the big talkers too (oddly enough, they’re usually responsible for “corporate politics”), but it sure plays out big in politics.
I’d say a good rule of thumb is to refuse to vote for anybody who hasn’t had some success in a real job where they have to do something other than jabber. Run a business, design an airplane, grow a crop, make a computer work, anything other than lawyering and politicking. Might seem like a radical idea, but this Talkocracy isn’t working out so well.
#18 Dwight – I am probably wasting my time responding, but here goes.
Obama had to act in Afghanistan, because after running his mouth for two years on the campaign trail about it being the good war, he HAD NO CHOICE. Just like Johnson in ’64, he was in a political corner.
He “advocates” more nuclear power, but closed Yucca Mountain, without which, more nuclear is not really viable.
During the debates, he stated that he “would look at offshore drilling”. McCain pointed out that he didn’t say he would DO it; just look at it. Words. Just words. What is he waiting for? Are there any bid processes ongoing? Are they coordinating with the States, which have to allow the drilling?
Without the States, Obama knows nothing will happen, so he’s free to “advocate” it, when it’s not at all in his purview.
Just because he says it’s so, don’t actually mean it’s so. He promises lots, but DOES nothing.
He’s a slick liar, and you are Useful Idiot enough to fall for it… then promulgate the lies further.
Jesus mother gave birth to first daughter who married to Arch Angel menaing Retired General Gabriel a soldier in Egptian Army,
after Jon the baptist prophesy but the sister of Jesus was still a virgin when her mother
mary born Messiah meaning male child called Jesus and jesus have attained the age her mother
was when she gave birth to and she have not been disflowered.
certain European citizens and Common wealth nation countries want to know soldiers and Nigeria army officers on duty’
when Nigeria during late Gen.Sani abacha regime killed,executed and multilated Ogoni nine who where
MOSOPThe Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People members with Ken saro-wiwa and Nigeroa goverment wa backlisted in Common wealth of nations countries,
the soldiers are sampled in Democratic era of present day Nigeria in Niger delta region as members of MEND.
Hum, the philosophy of hypocrisy: may I suggest, good doctor, De Sade’s novel Justine? It’s so French and tragic.
Dwight: You know damned well the O is a liar. And your defense of the indefensible is foolish.
Everyone knows the O only served up nuke power to quell the right and distract from climategate. Furthermore he will never allow building of nuke plants or on or off shore drilling. No way. Not now, not ever.
So he is worse than a hypocrit, he is a pathological liar who happens to be a Marxist.
Let us know the next(?) time the MSM goes after the O’s children or mocks Mrs. Messiah. Bye, Bye now.
Leftards are hypocrites because they are ignorant, irrational morons without integrity or principle. Ignorant of history. Unable to reason from a premise through a chain of consequences to a logical conclusion. Incapable of learning from experience, too stupid to care, and blind even to their own self-interest. Great ideas like freedom, democracy, personal responsibility, duty, and honor never enter the smug mental universe of these pathetic, egotistic dupes.
It’s hard for normally intelligent adults to believe that such fools are actually walking around dressed like grown-ups; but they are. How Democrats got this way is a story in itself, but anyone with common sense understands that we must protect ourselves against the delusional, suicidal defaults of these brain-dead zombies.
Obama appears normal. He is not. This fraudulent thug is a curse on America. Our lives depend on exorcising him and his sickening co-conspirators from their positions of power over our body politic.
@ 17. Peter: “taqiyya”
I have forgotten the English equivalent,
but not the definition:
A person so convinced of the overriding
rightness of their cause that they will
do anything, say anything to forward it.
In our society, the word is used when
discussing mental aberration, usually.
Perhaps that is why the Left projects
accusations of insanity at the right. :(
Dwight,
I went back and looked, and Dr. Hanson nowhere links Edwards to Obama. Obama is not mentioned in the bullet item on Edwards; Edwards is not mentioned in the bullet items on Obama.
Nor has Dr. Hanson suddenly switched positions, and stopped advocating the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan or dropped his support for drilling and nuclear power. Hanson has stayed with his positions on these things.
I think you are massively missing the point. Or perhaps illustrating it.
You forgot to mention the positive aspect of the cash for clunkers program; it got 95% of the; “Obama For President”, bumper stickers off the road.
I should in fairness add that your basic point is correct, with this modification: A predisposition to hypocrisy is an abiding part of the human condition.
Predisposition being the key difference. Some of us are willing to war with our carnal nature, not always successfully. Those who are successful do not deserve to be lumped with those who never seriously try.
I will believe Obama is for nuclear power and offshore drilling when I see concerted effective action. His track record of talking and not doing is too strong to take anything on his word alone. Give us action.
It is too much like his vaunted bi-partisanship. That turned out to mean Republicans were actually physically locked out of the process of developing bills and that their part of bi-partisanship was voting as they were told.
Actions and not words.
Actions and not words.
Actions and not words.
Why does the MSM, and in particular the NY Times, misrepresent the facts regarding so many current issues?
They are planting the seeds for the “approved” version of history from which the next generation will be educated. They are the authoritative source for the text books used in the public schools, and they understand their role well.
2. cfbleachers:
Sophistry is the correct term. And “fallacious” is what this administration is built on and survives on.
@24 Marc Malone: worry not about Yucca Mountain. All of the unburned fuel that any nuclear plant has left over during its lifetime can be entombed ‘in situ’ at the plant site. It will make an additional structure less than half the size of one of the generating units.
Maybe this time the man’s ignorance will backfire on him in a way that will actually be favorable to the country.
On the subject of the “drone killings”, too little attention is given to the fact that these are indeed assassinations. It is one thing for an armed man facing an armed enemy “to shoot to kill”. It is another to kill a man known to be an enemy leader, not engaged in actual combat, irrespective of the fact that innocent people may be killed at the same time. The administration says that the targeted people are enemy leaders but we are expected to accept that statement without proof. “Trust me” is not proof, particularly with the present administration, where there is substantial evidence that the President on repeated campaign stops made promises which he now denies or ignores.
22. Gyllipus, I couldn’t agree more. A conservative narrative needs to be effectively packaged.
Fenton Communications has effectively packaged many liberal initiatives and is a very powerful force with the major US media sources and key tool for class action legal actions.
Democrats are winning.
This situation will persist until similiar resources are used to deploy the message and narrative of so many individuals on these posts and the likes of VDH.
Dan Kennedy is a perfect individual to put this forward. John Carlton, another. They are copywriters extraordinaire, and know how to effectively communicate en masse.
#24 So he’s a slick liar, and I am a useful idiot, eh? Is that supposed to be convincing to anyone, other than the bluster choir? Do you remember, “Bush lied; people died”? Your blather is on the same level as that. Congratulations.
#27 Blotto No, to quell and distract were not the ONLY reasons. Many greens have been moving toward nuclear because of AGW beliefs, but the interesting thing will be to see if they (or Obama) stay with it if AGW gets dismissed. It could be, “what the hell, let’s go back to oil, because nuclear is still bad. Try to think these things out from more than just your own completely partisan angle.
And to think that ANY politician would support a position because of something other than his own deeply held core beliefs: that’s just SHOCKING, eh? I can’t tell if you people really are this dense and clueless about how the whole political system(beginning with Jefferson and Adams) works, or simply don’t care, and want to gore (or bash) Obama with whatever sharp (or blunt) objects are available. Sorry, but bluster is still that; bluster.
#30 Vlad: No, VDH did not link Edwards to Obama, but later commenters here did. VDH usually falls all over imself to deconstruct Obamanations, which automatically passes for wisdom here, but can seem formulaic over a whole year. To give him a little credit, he has eased up on Obama a bit in the last few columns and found different bones to gnaw. Bravo.
From the FIRST time heard Edwards, it felt to me that there was LESS there than met the eye. Further exposure only increased that perception. The fact that he also turned out to be a hypocritical slimeball, showed that there was more there, than met the eye, but, unfortunately, none of it was good. Obama does NOT come across that way to me, then or now; his hesitant speech seems a little more formulaic, but the “fact” that he gets portrayed here as some kind of dolt…or the anti-Christ, the meme varies, is quaint. People of decent intelligence could USE that version to further their own interests, but to actually believe it, puts one a bit further down the intelligence food chain.
M. Report:
“I have forgotten the English equivalent,
but not the definition:
A person so convinced of the overriding
rightness of their cause that they will
do anything, say anything to forward it.”
“Fanatic.”
24. May our children forgive us if we should ever be so foolish as to seal used fuel in Yucca Mountain, for what we would be burying is not waste, but fuel. The true waste is less than 5% of the used fuel, and much of that is rare elements that we’d be fools to throw away. The plutonium alone could power our current reactor fleet for the next seven years, and more efficient fast reactors are soon to be built that could run indefinitely on depleted uranium once provided a starter charge of plutonium or high enriched uranium.
Yes, the Left is always knee deep in Hypocrisy! Can you imagine if President Bush had claimed and ran his campaign with Global Warming Lies. Then a winter like this one? He would have been skewered worse than one can imagine. Yet Obama gets pass after pass.
I think another factor manifests itself in the mental disorder that calls itself liberalism. It is a mindset that is too clever by half, one that automatically and knee jerkedly rejects the God given common sense that most sentient beings possess. Even bunny rabbits possess this instinct, which is why they are not extinct. They fear and react to the wolf – proof that they’re not liberals. But the liberal arrogantly rejects this sense as beneath him and draws precisely the wrong conclusion from the stimulus around him and comes up with exactly the wrong answer, each and every time. He then compounds this error with a form of instant amnesia making him incapable of learning from his past mistakes. Liberals’ willful obtuseness truly drives me nuts.
42. Stop Marxism: “Yet Obama gets pass after pass.”
Sadly, yes, the whole ‘o’ admin has a ‘golden ticket’ it would seem:
White House Accused of Federal Crime in Specter, Bennet Races
Why are people advocating nuclear fuel? One leak and the disaster lasts decades (read about the scientific term of radiation half-life).
39. Dwight, explain that not a single person of 400 that graduated from Columbia University in 1983, Obama’s said Alma matter, knew him.
Please also explain the rationale for witholding his Columbia academic records.
He does not appear in any year book photos from Columbia. How come?
It’s never been about “Stay the course.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkrucUUNhdA&feature=related
No. Standing, Have. You.
You and Thomas Sowell are two of my most favorite living American writers.
If part of the issue is being articulate, why doesn’t VDH run for president?
Another problem of the conservatives is that when they do take power, the changes they implement are incremental and not as long-lasting as the New Deal or the New New Deal of Obama. Every government program gets it’s own concentrated beneficiaries, who also protect those program in a concentrated fashion. But the often much higher costs are borne by a diffuse group of people, and they fail to rally for every little issue. But all the little issues, extra expensive programs, levels of government and unelected regulatory agencies, add up.
The American people need to once again internalize some simple facts. As my father always says, the governments can subtract and divide up wealth, but only the free market can add and multiply it. Every penny the government offers you as, is already your own, as you are being bribed with your own money. For every penny the government spends “for you” as a stimulus, with supposed magical multiplier effects, there are probably two pennies the government will tax away.
I remember reading somewhere that for every $1 the government taxes from the small business, it does $5-$6 in damage through the unnecessary complexity and tax regulations. If a multinational corporation is forced to hire an extra accountant to deal with complexity, that is not a big deal, but for a small business it could be a death sentence. Therefore it is not surprising that the big businesses often end up supporting big government agendas. Microsoft is an illustrative case: in the beginning, Bill Gates was strongly against lobbying, however once the government threatened to break up his company due to his company being “too successful”, he changes his tune. Now he plays their game, to generate positive public opinion, etc. Why? Because he has to.
Perhaps every program should have a built-in expiry date. i.e. if a welfare program that promises to reduce unemployment fails, it automatically expires in 4 years.
Regarding #20: Jack, I am paraphrasing, but people are never as honest as when they profess their superiority. As Thomas Sowell often notes, one of the main problems with elites and an incorrect prevailing vision is that such elites do not need to double-check their assumptions with reality, so they easily fall into a group-think clique. Also note that to some extent, the characteristics of a people are determined by their environment. In a free system, individualism and personal responsibility grows. In a system where more and more is the government’s responsibility and not your own, with each generation the personal responsibility and individualism diminishes. Freedom is not ‘genetic’, it is a fragile system that must be defended and can be lost in a generation or two.
@3
You’re kidding right? The current economic crisis didn’t develop solely because of corrupt banker “elites” gaming the system while the “common folk” paid their loans on time and didn’t default. You seem to live in an idealistic dream world where “good” “elites” and “bad” commoners don’t exist, are you sure that you wouldn’t be more comfortable over at DU?
Hypocrisy? Here’s one: Is Scott Brown a RINO yet?
Ain’t it funny how liberals will accuse conservatives of arrogantly claiming the religious/moral high ground -then smugly ride off on their own quasi-religious humanistic/philosophical/moralistic “green” high horse…?
Ain’t it also funny, how liberals claim to fight for the little guy -then the little guy opts to vote against them…? Ah, but this only proves the liberal’s point, that the little guy is just too damn stupid/ignorant/misinformed to know what’s good for him, and thus we NEED a Big Brother-like Nanny State to enlighten him… As if to prove the point, Slate published an article stating that our all-knowing Administration’s inability to resolve our current crisis has nothing to do with misarticulated, partisan, or poorly planned proposals. Rather, it’s because the public is “childish” and “ignorant”… http://www.slate.com/id/2243797/
For more on liberal condescension, check this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403698.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
“This drive transcends the desire to contribute to charity, or to befriend the poorer neighbor or relative, but is cosmic in nature, overarching, all powerful, all-wise, and so by needs remote, So note here—and this is critical—the anointed utopian usually lives in a world—a better world— not subject to his own strictures.”
And that includss compassion for the underprivileged little guy, “The People,” who they claim to champion and work for.
The meanest sneers and slurs I’ve overheard directed at a poor and/or uneducated person came from self-described elitist. (“Yes, I’m an elitist,” they proudly sniff, solecistically confusing the word elitism, and its dominant connotations, with the word elite and its singular denotation).
biden’s own qualifiers of Candidate Obama, that he was “clean and articulate” (unlike most African-Americans, presumably, especially his congressional fellows?), Reid’s recent reference to “negroes” and both of the Clintons’ own offhanded racially-tinged remarks during the campaign gives one a good idea where they’re coming from (i.e. the party of slavery and segregation not too long ago that somehow, during the 1960s, managed to project and stick the stigma of racism on the party of Lincoln-Eisenhower, Republican presidents who spent real political capital on behalf of the enslaved, segregated, and oppressed African-American communities, meeting fierce resistance from Democrats).
But as long as they say the right words, and subscribe to abstractions, they can stay remote in their ivory towers.
As long as they publicly support abortion as a “Woman’s Civil Right” (female fetuses don’t count, apparently), they can still treat their secretaries, mistresses, and prostitutes alike: Like whores, and the feminists, remote in their own abstractions, don’t care.
As long as they acknowledge the “victimhood” of the inner-city, illiterate, and impoverished minorities (victimized indeed by what was foisted upon a once-conservative and fully-functional community of Americans), and preach about “The Two Americas,” they can also build their mansions right next door to the shacks of rural, illiterate, and impoverished white folk and ignore them (or at least never even invite their own neighbors over for a cup of coffee).
It seems some people are more equal than others, whether they be the demagogues at the top, or their constituents at the bottom.
39: “…People of decent intelligence could USE that version to further their own interests, but to actually believe it, puts one a bit further down the intelligence food chain.”
HAHAHA – you crack me up Dwight. Don’t you ever get bored staring at the walls of your little box?
50. Skeeziks
You need to apply a bit more rigor in defining your terms. Waiting for a discernable pattern before rendering judgment is not hypocrisy.
Presenting yourself as a compassionate, altruistic savior while suppressing facts and silencing dissent in order to steal people’s money is hypocrisy.
It exists on the Right too, but we view it as a despicable abberation to be rooted-out and exposed. For your side it has become an operating principle, as you so obligingly demonstrate on a regular basis.
I thought sophistry was answering a question with a question.
54. Gylippus:
I didn’t render judgment. I asked a question. You need to apply a bit more rigor to your reading.
“we view (hypocrisy) as a despicable abberation to be rooted-out and exposed”
Really? When did you do that? Why is David Vitter still a senator? Mark Sanford still a governor. John Ensign still in office? Dick Cheney still walking around free. Sarah Palin, who’s not “one of these political correct people” still making a living off of being offended by other people’s words?
You have no standing.
I think the principle difference between liberals and conservatives is that Liberals study philosophy and conservatives study history.
Look at the blogs. Liberal blogs always base arguments on some philosopher starting with Aristotle and Plato and working up to such modern thinkers as Barbra Streisland and Brittany Spears. Conservative blog seldom mention philosophy but always refer to past events.
Liberals always dismiss history. to them ancient history was when John and Paul walked the Earth — John Lennon and Paul McCartney (not them other guys). “Why study something in the distant past that nobody cares about?” they ask. “We have philosophy that tells how it should be. What can you learn from the past? Today things are different.”
Conservatives argue that liberal changes have never worked in the past and won’t work today. Liberals argue that this time it will be different because liberals will change people’s expectations by lying to them about what liberals plan to do — and when the people refuse to cooperate the liberals will have the power to force the people to obey the liberals. RULE #1 IS: LIBERALS ARE NOT LIBERALS — THEY ARE PROGRESSIVES.
Liberals don’t lie to us – they are merely adjusting our perception of reality. Its for our own good. They know what’s best because they study philosophy.
VDH for president. Glyippus for vice president!
Only people with at least some character and values feel bad or even care about being called hypocrites. This leaves out most left/liberal Democrats, for whom values are something to criticize conservatives collectively for not living up to individually 110% of the time. “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” as Vince Lombardi said (and Democrats feel, too).
Hypocrisy ? Well, this should take the cake…
Obama & Dems in ‘05: 51 Vote ‘Nuclear Option’ Is ‘Arrogant’ Power Grab Against the Founders’ Intent
(sigh!) Skeez – in framing your question thus, you provided an implicit definition of hypocrisy. I find it tedious to argue with people who don’t understand their own language. As to your further question, it is either a) a good example of what I’m talking about, or b) merely underscores that you missed my point altogether. Try harder.
60. tanstaafl:
Tell me, t-staff, what does the nuclear option mean? Is it the same as reconciliation? Because that is what Fox News is saying. Are they right? Please, edify us. Because I know I’ve seen video of Republicans threatening to use it. What gives?
Dr. Hanson:
Just so. May I adjust the focus of your arguments just a bit to a root cause? Having Watching Bill O’Reilly last night discoursing on the direction of the nation, it was heartening to see Newt Gingrich identify Barack Obama as a socialist, even as it was somewhat disheartening to see O’Reilly blindly refuse to do the same. The root cause of all of the hypocrisy, of all of the apparent intellectual disconnects is simply the inexorable urge of leftists toward the utopia of socialism and beyond.
Whatever one thinks of the President, one need only examine his policies and proposals to determine his true motivating philosophy: yes, say it loud and say it proud, it’s socialism. It takes relatively little research to reveal his socialist–even communist–roots and influences, from his parents to his pedophile communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, to his teachers, his associates, his friends, those with whom he worked (and works) and those from whom he draws his support. And of course, a quick look at those with whom he surrounds himself tells the same story: self avowed socialists, communists, terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, America haters and apologists ad nauseum. Our mothers know that we are defined by those with whom we associate. That so many adults are apparently unable to make this connection is disturbing.
Still not convinced? Consider five quick examples. (1) The US Government now owns majority control of GM and Chrysler and is promulgating policies such as unobtainable CAFE standards and electric vehicles (GM management admits that GM will lose money on every Chevy Volt it sells. At one time, government could afford to do this, private industry never could.) that will drive those formerly private businesses into the ground. At one time the US government was too big to fail. That is no longer an unassailable truth. (2) Obamacare II is worse than Obamacare I and both would dramatically raise taxes, bankrupt the economy, eliminate freedom and choice, fine and imprison those who fail to see the benefits of socialist control of their lives, and drive private health insurance companies out of business, leaving only Obama’s true goal: absolute and complete government control of all aspects of health care. (3) Obama also wants the power to regulate insurance premiums. With this power, insurance would cease to exist (the market would become irrelevant; no insurance company could afford to operate) and would be transformed–imagine that–into a government entitlement. (4) Cap and Tax. Perhaps the ultimate spread the wealth, impoverish the nation socialist scheme. (5) Finally, and this has seen media attention essentially only in Investor’s Business Daily, Obama is sniffing around private retirement accounts. Why? To seize all of those assets, estimated in the trillions, with a promise of worthless treasury bonds. Obama will seize all of your retirement savings–it will be “voluntary” at first–in return for a promise of government provided benefits at some indefinable point in the future. By any definition of the word, this is socialism creeping over the line into communism.
And the best part–for Obama–is that no grand conspiracy is required. There are no morning meetings of the People’s Committee comprised of academics, the media, NGO’s, the artists, the administration and Congress. Such groups–academia being a prime example–are self selecting and self perpetuating. They are a resource already in place waiting to be mobilized and exploited by an opportunistic, messianic, amoral, socialistic President. The media will always provide cover, passively or actively as required, for one who shares its goals and beliefs, who embodies “the narrative.”
Like the “scientific communists” of the Soviet Union, our contemporary socialistic elites no doubt lament the perks, benefits, private jets, limousines, high salaries and exalted status they must so nobly endure as they labor resolutely toward the ultimate worker’s paradise, a paradise that only their enlightened brilliance can establish, whether we want it or not and particularly if we don’t want it, for as we now know, the problem is never with them, but with the public at large, too stupid to know what’s good for them. The pain and suffering the elite willingly shoulder for the benighted little people is surely indescribable and as noble as, well, John Edwards or John Kerry–who observed that they had better hair than Bush and Cheney–or Anita Dunn or Van Jones, or…you get the picture. How can a nothing like Sarah Palin–or any of us–stand against such magnificence and munificence?
Socialism recognizes only forced equality of outcome, therefore any method that advances the holy goal is fair game, therefore hypocrisy does not exist, merit is ignored or suppressed, no doubt is allowed, no amount of money spent is too great, the destruction of the enemies of the state is the greatest good. The inexorable march toward the worker’s paradise continues, led by the scientific communists of our age. All hail the glorious revolution.
61. Gylippus:
Can’t muster the oomph to answer the question, eh? Is Scott Brown a RINO? Or do your principles and lofty intellect exempt you from asserting your principles and lofty intellect? Oops, that’s two questions. Didn’t mean to derail your processing.
#57 sol vason wrote:
“I think the principle difference between liberals and conservatives is that Liberals study philosophy and conservatives study history.”
———————-
I believe that there is some truth to your assertion, but another part of the problem is that so many conservatives study it with a selective view, essentially looking for things which will support their PHILOSOPHY…only. They can give you scores of cherry-picked quotations from the Founding Fathers which resonate with a particular view, but don’t seem very interested in other quotations from the same people which frame the case differently. They promulgate the myth that the founders believed x, when any complete study reveals that they believed x, y, and z, and since they were also lawyers and politicians (gulp) they sometimes believed not x, not y, or not z.
In other words, I do not find most conservatives who study history to be looking to analyze the two side of the eternal arguments, but rather to gather up all the lines which support their case and put them in the Reader’s Digest which Ronald Reagan so loved. Hell, it may well make for effective packaging and simple truths, but it hardly does the Founders justice, and it eschews looking at how they bent or contradicted any of their “principles” when they actually had to govern…or campaign.
It called the Newt Gingrich/Glenn Beck QUARTER of an education, but given their PHILOSOPIES, evidently they find it justifiable.
64. Apparently he is, else he wouldn’t have voted to keep wasting taxpayer money on stimulus bills.
56. Until an election intervenes, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. We can scream at them to resign all we want, but we can’t fire them until election day.
OK, we got one . . . myth buster has called it . . . Scott Brown is a RINO. Wow, that was a short honeymoon.
Next to go down, JD Hayworth.
I’ll hate myself in the morning for being goaded into this…
Skeeziks. I’ll answer your question (again), but first I want to walk you through your deceptive train of reasoning. It’s probably a pointless waste of time since no matter what I say you will cling to your convictions… but there’s a small chance that a light may go on and you will learn something. Here’s hoping.
You made an implicit judgment when you wrote: “Hypocrisy? Here’s one, is Scott Brown a RINO yet?” Your implication is that by not accusing Brown of hypocrisy, conservatives themselves are hypocrites, since they are applying a double-standard. Thus, your implied definition of hypocrisy is someone (or group) who asserts one set of values while acting according to another. A definition I agree with by the way.
I replied by saying that it was too early to tell. Note that I did not deny that Brown could indeed be a hypocrite, and if it turns out that he is, I will condemn him for it, and so will most who consider themselves conservatives. But I am suggesting two things: One is that it is usually prudent to look for a pattern before making a determination in such matters. One vote does not suffice in my view. Let’s see how he votes on the big ticket items like healthcare etc. Is that so unreasonable? The other point is that one should consider the underlying reasoning that went into the vote. There may be a range of ethical or tactical reasons that he supported the bill, which might mitigate the charge of hypocrisy. Either way the answer to your question is that no, Brown is not a RINO (in my opinion) not yet anyway.
But I am more interested in your own hypocrisy. In our exchange I wrote that “It (hypocrisy) exists on the Right too, but we view it as a despicable aberration to be rooted-out and exposed”, to which you took umbrage and gave a list of supposed hypocrisies to which conservatives turned a blind eye. Now I don’t necessarily agree that all the items in your list are instances of hypocrisy, but let’s grant for the sake of argument that they are. In my view these are (or would be) exceptions that do not disprove the rule – that conservatives reject hypocrisy in conservative politicians while the left tolerates and indeed often encourages and celebrates it in Dem politicians. An example:
When George Bush Sr. said “no new taxes” and then raised taxes, he was roundly condemned by the right, and they turned on him in the next election (even though that may not have been an instance of hypocrisy, it could easily be perceived as one). Similarly, when George W. Bush expanded government, and increased spending, he was widely criticized by the Right, and lost a lot of credibility since he appeared to deviate from conservative principles. Trust me, you will be hard pressed to find many conservatives who support him on those counts.
Now we have Barack Obama who is hypocrisy incarnate (I won’t repeat the long list of profound deceptions he has perpetrated – since VDH has done a masterful job exposing these in his last several posts). But I ask you: But I ask you, can you list a single value that he professed during his campaign that he has not negated in his method? And if not, why are you not calling him on it?
Furthermore, Bush was a monster and a dictator for builidng Guantanamo (to house violent jihadists) right? Is Obama a dictator, or did he just inherite the problem from Bush? The newspapers shrieked about Iraq for years, lies, greed, betrayal etc. Is Obama a traitor too? (I dare you to answer.) Dems exploded with fury over the threat of the ‘nuclear option’ in Congress, Obama gets a pass (from those same Dems). How do you feel about it? Dems voted en masse to support the war in Iraq, then turned on it when it became politically expedient to do so. Are they all traitors too? Al Gore preaches aobut global warming while pumping more carbon into the atmosphere than several families combined. Is he a hypocrite Skeeziks?
The point is that progressive liberals like yourself are prepared to look the other way about anything, so long as it is your side doing it. You know it and you wallow in it (which is another reason why this long reply is futile) – which makes you the worst kind of hypocites: knowing and wilfull hypocrites. And you are dead wrong if you think that holds true for conservatives. We are far from perfect, but no-one who truly holds conservative values could stomach adhering to a party for whom such systemic perfidy and deceit is Standard Operating Procedure.
#40 Allston – Not “fanatic”: “zealot”, since it carries the religious undertone. One can fight fanatically, because one must, without starry-eyed zeal. The zealots are the out-of-their-mind religious fanatics.
Of course, just because they’re zealots, doesn’t make them wrong… but usually it does.
Taquiyya, however, puts me in mind of conscious fifth columns and subversion.
#66 mythbuster – You beat me to it.
Skeeziks, you raise a valid point, but you give us no credit.
Many of us suspect that Brown is a RINO, but we also accept that he is the best we could hope for from MA. We have said so in many places. OTOH, he may have hidden his true Conservatism from the voters of MA so as to get elected, and we can expect times when he will attempt to maintain the facade with harmless votes, siding with the Dems. It’s not yet clear.
We roundly repudiated Sanford and Ensign. We Pubbies are good at eating our young. The Dems almost never do (see Rangel and Geithner). We’ll see how Rangel plays out. And Patterson. We’ll see, but the Pubs record on rejection of fallen Pubs is pretty good.
Screw you on Cheney. He has absolutely done nothing wrong, despite what the Leftist media tell you. They were legally correct… and IMO, too damned wussy. Beat them with rubber hoses, then execute them as saboteurs. Why are the scum still alive?
Oh, that’s right, because the Dems’ legal defense against doing the right thing dragged on through mid-2006 and a Supreme Court case. They couldn’t act for 5 years, because the Dems defend scum, and persecute the good guys. Screw you.
68. Gylippus:
“You made an implicit judgment when you wrote: “Hypocrisy? Here’s one, is Scott Brown a RINO yet?”
I implied nothing, you inferred that, probably because of a guilty conscience. I couldn’t care less whether you see him as a RINO or not.
“There may be a range of ethical or tactical reasons that he supported the bill, which might mitigate the charge of hypocrisy.”
So, the hypothetical possibility of an unknown is enough to exonerate Brown for going off the reservation. Fine, that’s the benefit of self-adjudication.
“In my view these are (or would be) exceptions that do not disprove the rule – that conservatives reject hypocrisy”
My list is a pretty good one. Your examples? George Bush was rejected by the right, and that’s why he lost the election. No, he lost because Bill Clinton beat him. As for W being criticized for deviating from conservative principles, that didn’t happen until the last year of his presidency, when it became clear that the right couldn’t defend their choices and policies of the previous eight years. You were fine with W until then. That’s why you re-elected him in 2004. Until 2008 the right’s stance on criticizing Bush was “Shut up. You’re undermining our country.” As the election approach, it was, “Who? Bush? No, he’s not one of us.” That, my friend, is hypocrisy on a grand ideological scale – knowing and willful – and you wallow in it.
“Can you list a single value that he professed during his campaign that he has not negated in his method?”
Yes, rejecting the self-righteous moralizing of conservative extremists.
“Dems exploded with fury over the threat of the ‘nuclear option’ in Congress, Obama gets a pass (from those same Dems). How do you feel about it?”
This is how I feel about it. I dare you to refute any of it;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sjJPJ2sQaw
“The point is that progressive liberals like yourself are prepared to look the other way about anything, so long as it is your side doing it.”
WMDs, greeted as liberators, Iraq oil will pay for the war, north, south, east and west of Bagdhad, Atta in Prague, 16 little words in the SOTU, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere, Blackwater, Halliburton, Walter Reed . . . nuclear option . . . Socialism! . . . Kenyan! . . . madrassa! . . . death panels! . . . it goes on and on and on.
“And you are dead wrong if you think that holds true for conservatives.” Wishing don’t make it so. If it did, I wouldn’t be able to write this.
You’re right, you should have resisted the goading. As for the self-loathing, well, you’re on your own.
68. Gylippus:
I offered a fairly comprehensive response, which apparently was too challenging to clear the censoring board. While I wait for ti to show up, I’ll take just one little tidbit:
” . . . conservatives reject hypocrisy in conservative politicians while the left tolerates and indeed often encourages and celebrates it . . .”
Hmm . . .
“Paulding County, Georgia lost its State House representative, Republican Glenn Richardson, to a familiar political demon last year — the extramarital affair. Now, the county has elected a replacement who has at least kept his infidelities within the family.
Last December, Richardson, also speaker of the Georgia State House, was forced to step down after his ex-wife made a televised address accusing him of having “a full-out affair” with a lobbyist while they were still married. Not even sympathies gained from news that Richardson had earlier attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills could save his political career.
On Tuesday, Paulding County went to the polls to choose Richardson’s successor in a special election. Their choice was Daniel Stout, a 29-year old banker from Dallas, someone who boldly touts himself as a “Christian, a Conservative, and a Republican,” and a man who has had to overcome the fact that had an extra-marital affair with his then-mother-in-law 10 years ago.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Stout “had an affair with his first wife’s mother while his first wife was pregnant with their daughter.”
You’re right. What was I thinking? I’m so sorry.
70. Marc Malone:
“OTOH, he may have hidden his true Conservatism from the voters of MA so as to get elected”
I’m sorry, can you clear this up for me, which principle is that again? Honesty? Independence? Patriotism? Truth? I can’t quite land that one.
“We roundly repudiated Sanford and Ensign.” And yet there they are.
“We Pubbies are good at eating our young”
see above
Just not holding up, guys.
Hey, sisyphus, I’ll try posting my previous response again, though given the sound trundling it gives you, it probably won’t make it through the . . . oh what did Sarah Palin call it . . . the word police.
71. “You’re right, you should have resisted the goading.”
That’s the only thing in your reply that I agree with Skeez. You’re purpose here is not discussion or reasoned debate, just well rehearsed obfuscation (the use of “mirroring” techniques, anti-concepts and other well-worn agitprop.) I can only assume you avoid honest discussion because you don’t like where it leads. i.e. to the dissolution of your leftwing fantasy world. I also notice that you failed to take up my direct challenges, nor did you refute my contention that hypocrisy and deception are now axiomatic Democratic tactics, which is not the case on the Right. (the examples you cite are mostly red-herrings, cooked up in leftwing think tanks and debunked long ago… all of which simply proves my point. (It’s interesting to me that apparently you don’t realize that. Perhaps that’s partly why Obama – who uses similar techniques, is tanking in the polls?)
But this argument has become circular. Enjoy your great victory. You evidently derive a sense of meaning and satisfaction in ‘victories’ based on rehashed talking points, tortured logic and non-answers and that, my friend, is the only evidence of ‘self-loathing’ apparent to me from this exchange.
73. Gylippus:
Why would Republicans vote for a guy who they know had an affair with his mother in law while his wife was pregnant with their child? Or has that been “debunked?”
That be axiomatic.
65. Dwight – you criticize me by referring to some philosopher who lived 200 years ago. Instead of philosophy lets talk about current problems in terms of history.
Does poverty exist in America today? Philosophically it does. But in actuality your average homeless person that sleeps in a cardboard box under a bridge in New York City is better off than Henry VIII when he was King of England.
Lets compare:
The American homeless person:
1. He has better medical care provided by the many free clinics in NYC. Henry VIII suffered for 30 years from a jousting wound in his leg that never healed. He suffered from Gout when he died. Both conditions can be quickly cured at any free clinic.
2. He has access to better drugs. Henry never had cocaine, heroine, weed, LSD or any pain killers.
3. He has access to better and safer gin, vodka, tequilla, rum, bourbon, rye, scotch. Distilled spirits in Henry’s time had unsafe levels of methyl alcohol. People died or went blind drinking these spirits
4. He has access to better dry red wines. Only sweet wines were drinkable and our bum has access to the same quality of wines as Henry VIII.
5. He gets clothing from various NGOs including lightweight warm clothing not available to Henry VIII
6. He can drink or wash in clean, disease free water. Henry VIII drank water that came from the Thames. The Thames was an open sewer. People only drank water when mixed with wine. In any case, Londoners died in their 40s.
7. The American homeless person has better entertainment via radio & television – better artists, better sports, same songs and plays as Henry VIII plus all the songs and plays written after Henry VIII died.
8. The American homeless person has a better diet from Salvation Army kitchen plus no need for food taster
9. NYC city is more sanitary than Windsor Castle in 1500 – no powdered dung in the wind/no open sewers/fewer rats/no plagues or famines except AIDS & stds. Many of the kings of Europe suffered from STDs; Henry VIII did not have siphylis.
10. Henry died at age 55 of various diseases. American homeless people live longer.
There are some areas where the American homeless person and Henry VIII are equal.
1. Henry VIII had fleas and lice. It is possible our guy does too.
2. Windsor castle did not have central heating or air conditioning. It was as cold and drafty as it is under the Queensborough bridge in NYC.
And there are advantages for Henry VIII
1. He had armed guards to protect him
2. He owned several cold and drafty castles and houses. In addition he could and did take any house he wanted, even if someone else owned it
3. Henry VIII wore ermine, mink and other furs.
4. Henry VIII had clothing tailored to fit him
5. Henry VIII had thousands of servants and slaves.
6. Henry VIII could sleep with any woman he wanted
In terms of basics, an American homeless person lives better than Henry VIII. Homeless people in other countries are much worse off. Americans should take pride in how well we treat our poor.
To me, this article just kicks the ball a little further down the road. If anything, this article is, too, hypocritical. It’s time to call the kettle black. Stop referring to the media as hypocritical. They’re out to do one thing: make money! You’ll notice that there is a news channel/show for literally every popular niche in society. By doing so, these programs have attracted their share of the pie. Will a left-leaning media source report more favorably for John Edwards? Probably. Does that mean that he’s not a worthless you know what? Nope. Still is in my book. Who pulls that kind of garbage and expects to get away with it? Will a right-leaning media source report more favorably for Sarah Palin? Probably (see Fox News). Does that mean that she’s fit for elected office? I don’t think so. The woman is not capable. End of story. She can’t even remember what books she’s read. She still needs to scribble notes on her hand when she gives a speech. That’s not folksy, that’s just poor preparation.
Honestly, I’m a liberal-leaning individual. But I’m so terribly tired of all of the games. There are a number of Democrats that are failing miserably at their jobs, including our President at times. The same goes for Republicans. You can’t say that you’re for an idea like health care, completely obstruct it’s passage, and then have nothing legitimate to offer as an alternative.
I really don’t know where this leaves us as a country, suffice to say that things aren’t working the way they are right now. The people have the final say, and can always vote with their feet. Be warned, though, that they’re all politicians in the end.
Also, I strongly disagree with this article’s comments on progressivism and utopianism. There are those who use these ideas for their own personal advancement, but there are many who aspire to the true ideals of these viewpoints. Those who take advantage are fatally flawed, and are individuals who take advantage no matter what the situation.
Lastly, I noticed some comments related to global climate change. Honestly people, please don’t comment on this if you don’t understand the science. It’s about the same as me going to my neighbor who wants to repave his driveway and saying I could do it. In theory, I could probably pave a driveway. In practice, I have no clue how to do it and would probably screw it up royally. If you really want to have an opinion on global climate change, stop going to mass media and read some books or scientific papers on the subject.
There’s a lot of bull out there right now. I’m tired of this song and dance people put on depending on whether they agree or disagree with it.