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Politics The War on Terrorism

Trial lawyers want to protect your civil liberties!

Just kidding.

Here’s Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post eviserating Mr. Bush and his press secretary over the warrantless wiretapping mess:

The ratio of useful information to hyperbole in White House press briefings has gotten dramatically worse under press secretary Dana Perino.

Here are just a few of the argumentative, nonfactual statements from yesterday’s briefing regarding the furious political battle over warrantless wiretapping.

“[L]ook, the President’s most solemn obligation is to protect the American people. And in some ways it seems that the House Democrats’ most solemn obligation is to help protect the trial lawyers – they’re the ones who have brought all these lawsuits.”

The leading lawsuits, of course, have been filed by non-profit public-interest groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Q If this is such a big deal, why didn’t the President accept another extension?

“MS. PERINO: Because the House couldn’t even pass an extension bill, even if they had wanted to. They couldn’t pass it.”

They couldn’t pass it because Republicans voted against it – on instructions of the White House.

It didn’t take long for the White House to start echoing Karl Rove about how “trial lawyers” want to protect consumer privacy. I guess old habits die hard.  I’m sure this line of attack made it’s way to the White House via Mr. Rove’s role as “an informal adviser”.

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Categories
Election 2008 Liberalism Politics The Clintons

Pathological idiocy: Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn of the National Review proves once and for all that he has no idea how liberals, Democrats, or non-ideologues think with this surreal observation:

With hindsight, the oral sex was a master stroke. Bill Clinton likes to tell anyone who’ll listen that he governed as an “Eisenhower Republican,” which is kind of true — NAFTA, welfare reform, etc. If you have to have a Democrat in the Oval Office, he was as good as it gets for Republicans — if you don’t mind the fact that he’s a draft-dodging non-inhaling sex fiend. Republicans did mind, of course, which is why Dems rallied round out of boomer culture-war solidarity. But, if he hadn’t been dropping his pants and appealing to so many of their social pathologies, his party wouldn’t have been half so enthusiastic for another chorus of “I Like Ike.”

Mr. Steyn’s proof of this rather unusual point: “Hillary is what the Clintons look like with their pants up” – and she is losing. Therefore, most liberals supported Mr. Clinton because of his sexual escapades.

The logic used here is impeccable.

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Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Clintons

How Barack Obama inspired the West Wing Finale

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Domestic issues Election 2008 Foreign Policy Obama Politics The Clintons

The Obamanauts

From Noam Sheiber’s look at Mr. Obama’s policy team in The New Republic:

The Clintonites were moderates, but they were also ideological. They explicitly rejected the liberalism of the 1970s and ’80s. The Obamanauts are decidedly non-ideological.

It’s well worth reading the entire piece.

Categories
Election 2008 Obama Politics

Klansmen for Obama

David Duke, founder of the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, United States Congressmen, and presidential candidate, apparently would rather Mr. Obama over the other presidential contenders:

I don’t think Obama will be any more negative for the United States than Hillary or John McCain.  In fact, we probably have less preference for a European like a John McCain or a Hillary who has betrayed our interests, our heritage, our rights.

I’m suggesting a new motto for Mr. Obama: Who ever thought that David Duke and Louis Farrakhan would agree on something?

***

Edit – link updated after a warning that Google AdSense that the above link to TNR was broken.

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Categories
Domestic issues Foreign Policy Politics

The Coming Financial Pandemic

Foreign Policy magazine has an interesting article behind it’s firewall by Nouriel Roubini about “The Coming Financial Pandemic“.

The subheadline reads like promotional material for a Michael Crichton novel:

The U.S. financial crisis cannot be contained. Indeed, it has already begun to infect other countries and it will travel further before it’s done. From sluggish trade to credit crunches, from housing busts to volatile stock markets, this [article will show] how the contagion will spread.

Given that – as this hype seems to suggest – this article may very well determine whether you will survive the next few years, it might be worth subscribing to Foreign Policy magazine. Of course, if you’re like me, despite paying for a two-year subscription last night, you might still be left without the promised “instant access”.

Still – I’ve read Foreign Policy magazine on and off for some time now, and it’s always worth the bi-monthly cost. The above-linked article proved to be rather insightful, despite it’s over-hyped opener.

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Categories
Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Clintons

The Governors’ Meeting

Dan Balz’s article in yesterday’s Washington Post headlines that “Democratic Governors See McCain as Formidable.” Damn right they do.

Reading the article, it was difficult to tell to what extent each interviewee was trying to ensure that the Democratic nominee would pick them, and to what extent they seriously considered their state in doubt.

Governor Edward Rendell said that Mr. McCain was “the ideal [Republican] candidate for Pennsylvania.” Mr. Rendell went on to describe a scenario that suggested Mr. McCain was the seemingly inevitable candidate for Pennsylvania.

Governor Jennifer Granholm said that Mr. McCain was “appealing in Michigan. He does appeal to independent thinkers – at least he did in the past – and we have a lot of those in Michigan. Whoever the Democrat is, Michigan is a state where we’re going to have to work.”

Governor Ted Strickland explained that, “I think John McCain could have an appeal to a lot of Ohioans.” Perhaps Mr. Strickland didn’t need to get all dramatic about his state because it decided the last Democratic election.

And those are just the Governor who support Ms. Clinton.  Mr. Obama’s supporters at the governor’s meeting seemed to focus less on the likelihood that their specific states would go to Mr. McCain.

Just something interesting to note…

Categories
History Morality

Einstein’s Religiousity

Do you believe in God?

I’m not an atheist. I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.

Some of us might be more definite in our beliefs.  But the key that Albert Einstein here acknowledged, and that we all must acknowledge, is that our individual – and even communal – beliefs must be understood with proper humility.

Earlier in his life, Mr. Einstein was quoted:

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.

This insight seems far more spiritual and far more catholic than anything the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has produced in the past two years.

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Categories
Election 2008 McCain Politics

A narrow market share

Hmm. Perhaps my prediction of Mr. McCain’s possible Vice Presidents is entirely determined by this Byron York column I read earlier which listed the two as Mr. McCain’s two main choices. I had forgotten reading this yesterday…

This line from Mr. Pawlenty struck me though:

…if the definition of conservative is going to be so narrowly construed as to only be those things to the right of John McCain, we’re going to have a fairly narrow market share.

It shouldn’t be striking to see Mr. McCain described as a far right conservative – as his record demonstrates he is one. But it is given how he is labeled by the media as an “independent” and “maverick.”  While Mr. McCain clearly has demonstrated independence on some issues – and some very important issues – in his foreign policy prescriptions, in his choice of economic advisers, and in his stances on social issues, Mr. McCain is a far right conservative.

I’m glad Mr. Sanford realizes this.

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Categories
Humor Prose

The Funniest Analogies (Collected by H.S. English teachers)

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

More here…

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