NRO's The Corner: what if an accident of birth had placed Obama in Cuba?

New season, new thread, new Nordlinger:

In an Impromptus last week, I reflected on the question, “Who is Obama?” And, in a column previous to that, I talked about Hugo Chávez — who said that, if Obama were a Venezuelan, he would vote for him. That is, Obama would vote for Chávez. (By the same token, said Chávez, he would vote for Obama. In other words, if Chávez were an American — think of that! — he’d pull the lever for our incumbent.)

Can you say for sure that a Venezuelan Obama would not support Chávez?

What if he were Cuban? What if an accident of birth had placed Obama in Cuba? Would he be with the regime? With the dissidents? Or would he be in between, with the great group of people who just want to keep their heads down and survive?

These are painful questions. Reagan talked about freedom and democracy a lot — incessantly. And promoted those things. George W. Bush did the same. And, when he did, a big segment of our Right cried “Wilsonian!” “Neocon!” “Israel Firster!” (I don’t know if that last term was around during the W. presidency. The sentiment certainly was.)

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330421/reagan-and-obama-c-jay-nordlinger

These are painful questions.

indeed

Can you say for sure that a Pope Romney would not censure Galileo? Can you say for sure that a Shoeless Paul Ryan wouldn't throw the 1918 World Series? Can you say for sure that a folk-icon Ron Paul would not go electric at Newport???

think of that!

If Nordlinger high? This seems like something someone would sit around wondering about if they were whacked out on something.

I genuinely do not understand what point he's attempting to make there.

he thinks he's making some point about Obama's essential character

what he's actually doing is playing dress-up with his Obama Barbie doll

i like that just like ilx these guys are driven to writing wistful fanfiction about their candidates:

They might also say, “Obama’s policies didn’t work in one term. They wouldn’t work any better in a second term. The problem is not time — the problem is their thinking.”

I think this would be good campaigning, in addition to true.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20051124042911/marveldatabase/images/8/85/What_If%3F_Vol_1_11.jpg

wait omg sorry

I recently reviewed a book by Mark Mazower, a brilliant but leftist historian. One of the points I made was that, for him, the opposite of Communism is never democracy or freedom — it is “capitalism.” He’ll speak of “the Communist countries” and “the capitalist countries,” of “Communist policies” and “capitalist policies.”

Is Obama of the same mindset? Let’s hope not, for he is, after all, president of the United States.

t/s: "a brilliant but leftist historian" vs "let's hope the president of the united states doesn't understand what words mean"

oh my

Let's hope not.

Biden’s Private Reality
By The Editors

(sry should have been 1919 World Series up there)

for him, the opposite of Communism is never democracy or freedom — it is “capitalism.”

wow he really Got Him with this one

remember when texas kicked the word 'capitalism' out of its textbooks and replaced it with 'free enterprise'?

nordlinger is bad at pronouns

he sees this as a thought exercise, i call it mental masturbation

Romney in the Arena
By Michael Knox Beran
October 17, 2012 9:47 A.M. Comments14

1. Romney was Teddy Roosevelt’s “man who is actually in the arena” last night. If his face was not “marred by dust and sweat and blood,” he was mocked by the off-camera vulgus mobile in the spectators’ gallery (press? Hofstra scholars?), and he was repeatedly given the thumbs down by Candy Crowley. Why is, how can, the Commission on Presidential Debates be so inept in setting up neutral coliseums?

why is how can

I don't think he understands commas

Why is the Commission on Presidential Debates be so inept in setting up neutral coliseums? <--- v important question, lovechild of Yoda and Oswald Bates

well, the vulgus mobile doesn't understand him, period

i had vulgus mobile for a while but they didnt have a 4g plan

I had vulgus mobile a little while back but the antibiotics cleared it right up

Coliseums is a poor choice of word, too, if you're going to be all vulgus mobile on us.

Vulgusmobile presumably the customised crimefighting vehicle of choice of Vulgusman?

Actually, it should be mobile vulgus (hence eventually our word, 'mob') but Mr Beran not only can't parse English but can't get his high-falutin' Latinisms down, either. At least he references an American president who would have loathed Mitt.

I think there's a mobile vulgus hanging in the lobby of the art museum

and that is why we need to defund the NEA

'mobile vulgus' is the latinism, although in latin the order doesn't matter.

When it transfered from Latin to English in the 17th century the idiom was predominantly mobile vulgus -> 'mob'

Obviously, vulgar and vulgate etc, were already in our vocabulary.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330800/debates-2012-exercise-liberal-pathology-stanley-kurtz

lead:
Liberalism isn’t doing so well lately. In fact I’d go so far as to say that liberalism is becoming downright pathological.

conclusion:
It seems fair to conclude, then, that liberalism isn’t doing so well lately. In fact I’d go so far as to say that liberalism is becoming downright pathological.

Quality writing.

And everything in between could quite easily be said about so-called conservatives

xpost

He's closed his own loop!

the transition from "relatively reasonable" to "disgusting dickhead" is magnificent in this comment:

r212 • 40 minutes ago

I think you'd have to be a complete boob to not understand the difference between, "The policies of President Obama are harmful to the economy, in general, and to this business, in particular" and "You're fired if you don't vote for Romney." (What boss in his or her right mind would say the latter, anyway? It is so obviously illegal, it doesn't even merit discussion.)

We just went through a huge round of layoffs where I work, because both the economy and our business have been terrible. And yet, I know that huge numbers of employees here will vote for Obama. To them, birth control pills and having a "cool" president trump any kind of rational thought. (Does it sound like I have a low opinion of my co-workers? In a political sense, sadly, I do.)

so irrational for people who may be laid off to vote for a President who extended unemployment benefits.

An old-time political hand in D.C., whom I know and who has advised and worked on many campaigns, is utterly convinced that the exchange was a setup of Romney by the Obama campaign and Crowley.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330922/obama-crowley-set-john-yoo

Obama claimed he had mentioned it the day after the attack, looked at Crowley, and asked her to “get the transcript.”

ok then i'll say "get the transcript" then u get the transcript

attn scrubs: this is how you concern troll

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331167/obama-ads-aired-during-racist-sitcom-katrina-trinko

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/331042/attack-ivy-league-holes-fred-schwarz

this is hilarious

I can't wait to read what John Yoo wrote about executive overreach.

what the hell does "countrified" mean?

Breaded and fried in a pan?

bandmom • 2 hours ago −
Wow, this is much ado about nothing. Maybe I'm a racist but I never thought 2 Broke Girls was racist or the jokes were racist. I watched it last year and not so much this year. It's too sexualized for me, but racist? nah. (Where is the writing that went into shows like Frazier? Hilarious).

lead:
Liberalism isn’t doing so well lately. In fact I’d go so far as to say that liberalism is becoming downright pathological.

conclusion:
It seems fair to conclude, then, that liberalism isn’t doing so well lately. In fact I’d go so far as to say that liberalism is becoming downright pathological.

kind of imagine this ringing through the writer's head over and over again, a la 'dental plan! lisa needs braces!'

I like how Fred Schwarz continues with the thread's "WHAT IF..." theme:

So if high-school hotshot Jimmy Carter had come along a couple of decades later, he would probably have been an Ivy Leaguer too.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/HighSchoolBigShot.jpg/220px-HighSchoolBigShot.jpg

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.

God, what a resentful punk-ass NRO motherfucker.

Naval career

After high school, Carter enrolled at Georgia Southwestern College, in Americus. Later, he applied to the United States Naval Academy and, after taking additional mathematics courses at Georgia Tech, he was admitted in 1943. Carter graduated 59th out of 820 midshipmen at the Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree with an unspecified major, as was the custom at the academy at that time.[14]

Carter served on surface ships and on diesel-electric submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. As a junior officer, he completed qualification for command of a diesel-electric submarine. He applied for the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program run by then Captain Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on him. Carter has said that he loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Carter felt the best route for promotion was with submarine duty since he felt that nuclear power would be increasingly used in submarines. Carter was based in Schenectady, New York, and working on developing training materials for the nuclear propulsion system for the prototype of a new submarine.[15]

On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown. The resulting explosion caused millions of liters of radioactive water to flood the reactor building's basement, and the reactor's core was no longer usable.[16] Carter was now ordered to Chalk River, joining other American and Canadian service personnel. He was the officer in charge of the U.S. team assisting in the shutdown of the Chalk River Nuclear Reactor.[17]

Once they arrived, Carter's team used a model of the reactor to practice the steps necessary to disassemble the reactor and seal it off. During execution of the actual disassembly each team member, including Carter, donned protective gear, was lowered individually into the reactor, stayed for only a few seconds at a time to minimize exposure to radiation, and used hand tools to loosen bolts, remove nuts and take the other steps necessary to complete the disassembly process.

[....]

Upon the death of his father James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953, he was urgently needed to run the family business. Lieutenant Carter resigned his commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.

Jimmy Carter was many things, but he also quit school and signed up to be a Naval officer during the War, went inside a live fucking reactor, and was the only engineer to ever serve as President.

....and Hoover.

which is partly why they were failures, as Gore Vidal once argued: their minds weren't easily adaptable.

wonder what president vidal would've been like

writing sodomy into the Bill of Rights.

mandatory martinis at 3 for every citizen

Fix Bayonets
By Daniel Foster
October 22, 2012 11:39 P.M. Comments2
Did anyone else think it was odd that President Obama chose to challenge a millionaire boy scout on his knowledge of horses and knives?

On a serious note, a mom of two Marines just put it to me very well: “Amb. Stevens would have loved a horse or a bayonet or a Marine with either one.”

Quite.

uhm, what would a horse or a bayonet have done against a bomb or rifle attack inside a building?

"They're breaking down the conference room door! DEPLOY THE HORSE!"

gosh I didn't realize Romney won the debate last night. Good thing I checked the Corner ;)

Victor Davis Hanson: Are We Becoming Medieval?

Maybe Romney went a little overboard with invocations to peace and economic development as the answer to everything as if he were a risen George McGovern. But he realized that his task was not to make foreign policy — he’s not president yet — but to win an election, and like a good professional he concentrated on that task.

as the late Hitch once said of George Will, this guy writes like an adoring hack in a one-party state.

NRO hack says "Mitt was right" about Syria being "Iran's route to the sea," gets pwned by own commenters.

lol

I think pollowitz is the guy who writes almost all of NRO's climate denial articles

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331526/obama-should-remember-our-horse-soldiers-elaine-donnelly

Yeah, most folks don't comprehend the meaning of "fewer" nowadays

horse_esoliders

HorseTalk.co.nz

“Obamnesia”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331705/dems-smear-mourdock-ad-katrina-trinko

surprised they're rallying around this guy

i think what he said is close enough to what they believe that they have to

trinko knows the body can't magically shut down an fertilization, but she still believes that the baby is a gift from god that you shouldn't abort

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331954/election-day-air-eliana-johnson

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332062/suspended-non-reanimation-michael-walsh

Suspended Non-Reanimation
By Michael Walsh
October 30, 2012 1:48 P.M. Comments9
Does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that Hurricane Sandy has forced the “suspension” of the Obama campaign while the president play-acts the role of nurturer-in-chief in the aftermath of the storm? Recall that John McCain disastrously suspended his “campaign” four years ago to sit around and look worried about the unfolding financial crisis, and while that alone did not cost him election, it did allow candidate Obama to both eat McCain’s lunch out on the hustings and appear as “no-drama Obama” to an electorate that knew virtually nothing about the nice young man, in contrast the panicky old codger whose ability to influence the course of events was precisely zero.

Neither man was president, dipshit.

his "campaign"

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcpuq8lB9q1qa9bmvo1_500.png

not to mention that the photo isn't even from yesterday

Not to mention Marines don't guard the Tomb of the Unknowns. That's been one of the duties Army's 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment for the past 64 years.

oh ha

the leftist rag sites who ran that photo yesterday even got that right

^of the Army's... Seriously anyone with any experience in the military could spot Army ceremonial uniform vs. Marine ceremonial uniform in an instant.

marines ceremonial uniform is just shirtless and oiled iirc

marines love to be confused w/ soldiers btw lol

the corrected article admits the picture error but has no mention of the marines thing

marines thing was just quietly edited w/o comment i think

Still dealing with Sandy. Back soon.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcre943Kho1rk5d6vo1_1280.png

This definitely falls into the "Kind of lol but mostly sad" category.

omigod that poor simp

"By 'some' I mean 'me,' and by 'praying' I mean 'shotgunning a package of Oreos.'"

good use of the lord's time, that

Why pray for the victims of Sandy when a website is down? Priorities, people.

eat McCain’s lunch out

http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq318/meercy/GIFS/Disgust.gif

Kathryn Jean Lopez ‏@kathrynlopez
a veteran political hand just told me romney wins all swing states including MN and MI and PA. name is not dick morris. i'll take it.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS4pW3aaF4YVSkae-rRXUpOaq7-ORHqlmbNnTxTD0QeQXIaJXX6Lw

disappointed K-Lo is a fullblown hysteric at this point like she was in '08.

*isn't

If she honestly believes that Romney is going to win at this point, it will make her election night meltdown all the more fevered and hysterical.

Covering All the Bases

By Mark Steyn

As the President says, women are not an interest group. No, sir, they’re several interest groups, and one can’t but admire the generational thoroughness of the Democratic campaign with their precisely targeted advertising: Barack Obama will satisfy your lady parts, deflower your daughter, turn your grade-schooler into a glassy-eyed Kim Jong-Il extra, and get gran’ma mouthing like a gangsta ho.

What, nothing for the horny-cougar demographic?

get gran’ma mouthing like a gangsta ho

would pay money to watch Mark Steyn beaten by a braying mob

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/628832/thumbs/o-PHILPOTT-BRAYING-MOB-570.jpg?1

good one, mark, you really made those democrats look bad. /derp

K-Lo has more thoughts:

That said, I heard from one first responder in Brigantine, New Jersey, who was taking a break and checking what we were saying. (Always so humbling to know that when you get a line you might be checking in on us!) He has no access to any of the coverage of the visit, but he was on the ground at the time. He says the president wound up in the most Republican ward of the city. He reports that one person close to him who still has a W sticker on his car “walked through 60 degree water” to see President Obama because he is the president of the United States and appreciated that he was bringing attention to their devastation, and showing some solidarity with them as they face rebuilding and other choices about how to go forward.

In addition to the smarmy, smutty tone, the ad was an ugly, desperate attempt to manipulate young women into voting for Obama, on the general grounds that he is “a great guy,” and “cool.” Apart from the fact that neither of those qualities are really at the top of the list of key attributes for boyfriends or leaders of the free world, the ad occasioned disgust because it was a new cultural low.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332241/lessons-experience-sex-and-politics-lisa-schiffren

smarmy AND smutty! Well then!

top attributes for Lisa Schiffren boyfriends

Wait, on what woman-hating planet are "a great guy" and "cool" NOT at least near the top in a list of desirable boyfriend attributes?

kolob

Nordlinger brags about his black friend, to Marilyn Horne:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332271/hornes-aplenty-jay-nordlinger

Marilyn Horne and Lena Horne became good friends — and Lena would tell her, “We’re sistahs under the skin.” This leads me to tell her about Rachel Noerdlinger, who is press secretary to Al Sharpton. She calls me Brother Jay, and I call her Sister Rachel.

how much did it hurt him to write "sistahs"

meanwhile Stanley Kurtz calls a new anti-Obama essay "The Fire Next Time."

Pennsylvania Could Be Romney’s Inchon Landing
By John Fund
November 6, 2012 11:49 A.M. Comments0

In 1950, during the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur launched a truly daring military maneuver — outflanking the enemy and making a sudden amphibious landing behind North Korean lines at Inchon. The invasion was almost a complete surprise, forcing the North Koreans to flee inland. Within days MacArthur had recaptured the capital of Seoul and changed the entire conflict.

Mitt Romney is attempting a political equivalent of an Inchon landing in Pennsylvania, a state that hasn’t voted Republican for president since 1988. His campaign and allied groups have poured in $12 million in last-minute advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

i.e. The Batshittery Begins

"Begins"

oh but I mean the combination of stiff upper lipism, triumphalism, tribalism, self-pity, and thuggery that only out-of-shape people posting behind a Target can pull off on Election Day.

Did Jay-Z Just Accidentally Endorse Romney?
By Jillian Kay Melchior
November 6, 2012 12:38 P.M.

At an Obama rally yesterday, the rapper performed his hit “99 Problems” but changed the lyrics to “if you’re havin’ world problems, I feel bad for you son/ I got 99 problems, but Mitt ain’t one.”

If this person is 80 years old I might allow that.

NRO POLL
Are you voting for Romney or against Obama?
- For
- Against

Grover: The Republican House was reelected after not just touching but fondling the “third rail of American politics.”

literally every column up there today is gold

Yup. This one is my favorite -- Maggie Gallagher, mugged by reality:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332853/mistakes-and-losses-maggie-gallagher

The epic levels of butthurt this morning are a thing of beauty.

Assuming this is not a troll, I love this comment:

George LeS • 5 hours ago
I talked to too many people to believe that we can win with social conservatism. The fact is that, to most Americans, Mormons, Evangelicals, and we Catholics are creepy. They really fear us. And since they disbelieve in fiscal conservatism, are weary with overseas problems, and don't give a damn about the Constitution, we really have nothing to offer which they want.

From this day forth, we live under a Left tyranny.

K-Lo seen outside closed Sizzler tweeting.

She's babbling:

Kathryn Jean Lopez ‏@kathrynlopez
the culture. that's what i have on my mind this morning. gotta win the culture to win the future.

http://www.editkid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/freaks_randian.jpg

"The culture. The culture. The culture."

Classic single-issue ranting: it's the whole education system, stupid.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332872/times-david-gelernter

PORGIS!

Time’s Up
By David Gelernter
November 7, 2012 8:12 A.M. Comments0

We’ve seen an important (though far from decisive) battle in the slow-motion civil war the nation is undergoing: The blue states want to secede not from America but from Americanism. They reject the American republic of God-fearing individuals in favor of the European ideal, which has only been government by aristocracy: either an aristocracy of birth or, nowadays, of ruling know-it-alls — of post-religious, globalist intellectuals (a.k.a. PORGIs). As I’ve said before — many others have too — you can’t graduate class after class after class of left-indoctrinated ignoramuses without paying the price. Last night was a down payment.

xpost re 'the culture': did y'all see the article the day before election claiming that a vote for Mitt Romney = a vote against the leftist academic tyranny of 'the Frankfurt School narrative'? smdh

isn't "an aristocracy of [...] ruling know-it-alls" just a really polemical way of saying "meritocracy"

is Mitt Romney really "a God-fearing individual"? I don't know the first thing about Mormon God but I always pictured him as p.benevolent

His real god is money.

wow we might have to poll today's corner posts

We’ve seen an important (though far from decisive) battle in the slow-motion civil war the nation is undergoing: The blue states want to secede not from America but from Americanism. They reject the American republic of God-fearing individuals in favor of the European ideal, which has only been government by aristocracy: either an aristocracy of birth or, nowadays, of ruling know-it-alls — of post-religious, globalist intellectuals (a.k.a. PORGIs). As I’ve said before — many others have too — you can’t graduate class after class after class of left-indoctrinated ignoramuses without paying the price. Last night was a down payment.

But we’ve won civil wars and preserved the Union before. We’ll do it again — if we face up to the fact that we need to replace our schools and colleges now; the grace period has lasted a generation, but it’s over. I know we can do it and I’m pretty sure we will do it. Americanism is too strong and brilliant and young to die.

either an aristocracy of birth, or nowadays, of ruling know-it-alls not an aristocracy at all under any sensible definition of the word.

Read one of those columns, and OMG, had no idea "the Obama electorate defeated marriage." Should I tell my wife? Y/N?

The Republican House was reelected after not just touching but fondling the “third rail of American politics.”

what the fuuuuuuuuck

the "most powerful man in the republican party" thinks the future of the right is paul ryan. i think that says it all http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332850/what-just-happened-grover-norquist

This from Maggie is pretty otm:

2. The money guys bought the GOP nomination for a candidate voters didn’t like very much. Romney won by pummeling his opponents with negative ads. He lost the same way because he did not have a five-to-one money advantage over Obama.

(Of course, she's probably still fantasizing about what a great nominee Santorum would've been.)

Hm. The results proved that $$$ helps but only up to a point imo

yup

romney beat his opponents because they were all crazy people who said crazy things and couldn't hold their own on national media for a week

did the super big-money shadow figures accomplish anything?

holy christ I wish you guys could listen to Cuban talk radio this morning

are they freaked out?

the "most powerful man in the republican party" thinks the future of the right is paul ryan. i think that says it all http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332850/what-just-happened-grover-norquist

― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, November 7, 2012 9:20 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"hmmm people seem to be getting tired of Ja Rule. ok it's your turn, Cadillac Tah, you're the future of rap now!"

Cubans livid over Joe Garcia's victory; Garcia seen as a traitor and appeaser and Fidelist.

Garcia last seen leaping from building to building, a veritable Fidelist on the roof

alfred, do you think the results in florida indicate a waning of cuban influence on broader hispanic community in that state?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xo3f93gQXs

well, part of the trouble is that Univision bought the all-powerful AM station Radio Mambi, and guess who is the most powerful person in Univision (it rhymes with "Schmamos). Callers accusing the octogenarian anti-Communist hosts appeasers for not criticizing "their paymasters" (direct translation)

"hmmm people seem to be getting tired of Ja Rule. ok it's your turn, Cadillac Tah, you're the future of rap now!"

― Citizen Ship (some dude), Wednesday, November 7, 2012 9:57 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha i just read this post while "between me and you" played on the radio

I loves you, PORGI (DJP)

You East-coasters get up too early, otherwise that is EXACTLY what my DN would be right now.

Kevin Williamson, author of the essay claiming that conservatives did more for civil rights than libs:

There is not much in this to comfort conservatives. The lessons of Ohio are that Barack Obama is a skillful demagogue, that the ancients were wise to number envy among the deadly sins, and that offering Americans a check is a more fruitful political strategy than offering them the opportunity to take control of and responsibility for their own lives. This is what Oakeshott had in mind when he wrote that liberty was something that many people simply are not equipped to “enjoy as an opportunity rather than suffer as a burden.”

aaaahahaha DJP's DN

and man, these people. So, "Obama won because he offered people the denial of their own subjectivity, that bastard, and speaking of which those people are not equipped to handle liberty."

"hmmm people seem to be getting tired of Ja Rule. ok it's your turn, Cadillac Tah, you're the future of rap now!"

loooooool

David Gelernter seems to have an excellent grasp of invective. Substance, not so much.

Jonah reduced to (mis)quoting Burke.

aaaahahaha DJP's DN

― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, November 7, 2012 9:59 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

amazing DN

*bows*

This one, written the day before the election, is sort of awesome to read the day after. I mean...

A vote for Romney tomorrow is a vote against all that. It’s not just a vote for president; it’s a vote in favor of reformation of the media and the universities, hotbeds of propaganda and indoctrination, often subsidized by the government, and both in the thrall and in the service of the Frankfurt School “narrative,” of which Barack Obama so clearly approves. It’s a vote for the restoration of standards — the Left calls it “repression” — in our popular culture, for the acknowledgment of the role of religion in public life, for the rollback of the federal leviathan and its constant intrusions into the lives of American citizens.

It’s not enough for the GOP to win tomorrow. It needs to win big, a win so convincing that even the Left won’t be able to explain it away. The definition of victory in war is not a 50.1 percent majority that allows the other side to keep fighting — it’s the battleship Missouri, on whose deck the losing side signs articles of capitulation. The modern Left — the unholy spawn of ’30s gangland and ’60s academic Marxism — must be forced to its knees in surrender.

(I see Bernard Snowy mentioned it above. Anyway, guaranteed lols.)

http://i.imgur.com/f12Hj.gif?1

30s gangland~!

"Crush Them" is the maddest of the mad. I wonder how he's feeling today.

haha I love some of the "Crush Them" commenters

hoosierjim • 2 days ago

This was better in the original German.

Fun teeth-gnashing across all the comment threads today:

cavecanem • 15 hours ago

Conservatism has lost.
The America loved and defended by conservatives is over.
The great experiment is failed.

vetes cavecanem • 15 hours ago

I hate that I agree with this. It's just that there's no other way to interpret this. By any logical and realistic measure the past four years were a disaster economically. And that disaster was rewarded today. There is no coming back.

Collinsdad cavecanem • 14 hours ago

Naw the American people failed. Liberalism is failing but something for nothing is so very appealing to those who are perishing. Conservatism has always succeeded. America is now unworthy of it.

Conservatism has always succeeded. America is now unworthy of it.

Gonna take all their Burke and Hayek and hole up in Colorado Springs until we beg them to come back to us.

Like the Germans circa 1930s - they've voted for their own demise. And only when the fit hits the shan will some of them finally wake up and I'll get the satisfaction of telling them "I told you so."

This country deserves to be wrecked.

America will now become a failed fascist state, much like greece, except there will be no one to bail us out

What's going on in Greece will look like a spring festival compared to what's coming our way.

Due to the results tonight, my wife and I had to decide that we will not start a family. It will be just us two from here on out. This country is over.

This was another Phiippi, and once again, a republic has died.

Now, there is no hope for America, and the World.

The voters have spoken, God help us and this country. This is the end as American as we have known it.

America blew it.

Get ready for Armageddon.

Where is John Galt?

Other than that I think they're taking it pretty well.

glad to hear they decided not to have kids

That was the one sound decision in that post.

I've never clicked on this thread before today, in the same way I stopped skimming freerepublic, but between Shoeless Paul Ryan, I loves you PORGI, and "Due to the results tonight, my wife and I had to decide that we will not start a family" I'm in tears over here.

Via Scott Seward (warning: listen on headphones if you're at work):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLoqti0lzAw

yeah I'd like to think I'm not into liberal gloating and schadenfreude and petty/smug self-satisfaction but I gotta admit that the line "Due to the results tonight, my wife and I had to decide that we will not start a family" just made laugh bigtime, the idea that this nation was supposed to come running to them, begging that they reproduce and give us a second chance is just hilarious. For some reason it reminds me that teen-atheist-vs-suburban-mom YouTube chestnut from way back "okay FINE, don't believe in God- but you are getting NO CHRISTMAS PRESENTS this year young man", like "Okay FINE elect Barack Obama but I warn you that I will not produce any offspring"

that's on the election thread, we're marveling at it over there

What's all this free check malarkey? The notorious socialist experiment that is Obamacare may be a blow to freedom (laissez faire la mort, etc..., pace Fourier or whomever) but it's not a free lunch, it's an obligation to pay into an insurance system, kinda like being obliged to pay for a national defense...

Due to the results tonight, my wife and I had to decide that we will not start a family. It will be just us two from here on out. This country is over.

does this count as an abortion? can it be blamed on the libs?

Is free check just bleed-over from the Romney tactic of implying/insisting that Obama was doing something-or-other to welfare that would mean GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS and/or WELFARE QUEENS and so on?

The comments on this one are amazing. ALL over the place.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332857/no-good-excuses-michael-tanner

Yep. Based on the comments I read on news articles, "free check" is conservative nutjobs' number one go-to answer for why anyone would possibly vote Democratic. Handouts, welfare, freeloaders, no liberal has a job, etc. etc. (xpost)

read that and some other things elsewhere seems like if there will be any area where the establishment does 'take back' the party it will be at the expense of social conservatives. bad night for santorum.

Should I be surprised that the NR links to Vice?

lol no

And they're trying to figure out why less people want to be in their club:

It doesn't change the fact that the minority, youth, and women's vote is destroying this country and the principles it was founded on.

The principles of owning ppl of color and disenfranchising women, one presumes.

I AM CURIOUS (CUBAN)!

Mr Foot in Mouth out again.

I love how Walsh blames George Stephanopoulos and the MSM for enticing Republican candidates into expressing what they really thought about rape and contraception, therefore alienating millions of women, while not actually blaming Republican candidates for holding those views.

n the service of the Frankfurt School “narrative,” of which Barack Obama so clearly approves.

ok i'm a lifelong lefty, properly indoctrinated w.a liberal arts university education and i have no fucking idea what this is

was exiting a class today, filing through the building's door, and there was a sad little half-piece of paper taped to the door reading

NEVER GIVE UP!!!
COLLEGE YOUNG REPUBLICANS MEETING [PLACE] [TIME]

and i loled and the person in front of me heard me and turned around and said I KNOW RIGHT

i think he meant that culture + capitalism are entwined aka CULTURAL MARXISM aka obama is a communist

that Walsh article takes a brief detour into sanity in the 6th paragraph

We also need to address the issue of the extreme bias in the cyber server/search engine media. Yahoo has a great immediate impact with users that can be as noxious as a theory of primacy brainwash. Conservative big venture money needs to start new servers-start engine systems to challenge Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, Google, etc.

When the analysis is done on the way stories were covered by Yahoo/ABC, the bias and editorializing will shock the readers beyond what they noted during the recent months.

We need a Fox News Server that can offset the chicanery of the leftist's funnel control of internet services ... Mr Ailes? Mr. Murdoch? The Koch's?

a Fox News server?

Skynet?

"On Jan. 1, 2013, FoxNET became operational."

it's great that he focuses on Yahoo because Yahoo leans right already and their comments are a rightwing cesspool

My Silver Lining
By Mark Steyn
November 7, 2012 2:17 P.M. Comments23
It’s no secret Michele Bachmann was my primary pin-up back in those early, crowded presidential debates. In the tsunami of bad news, I am delighted that she won a tough race in Minnesota. She has her critics, but she is a courageous and principled fighter, and she gets the urgency of the crisis facing an ever broker America. I’m glad she’ll be back in Congress, and I wish there were more like her.

John O'Sullivan, worried about that white minority.

(He appears to think most Latinos look like Joshua Treviño, if I'm reading that right.)

But it would be false comfort (and the kind of irresponsible optimism I detest) not to mention a darker possibility. That possibility is that whites will develop a defensive minority consciousness in response both to their statistically weaker position.

That has happened before where majorities have become minorities, and it is a “rational” response (so to speak) to this change in their condition. When their collective power was numerically unassailable, they felt able to extend generous concessions to other groups. When they feel threatened, they defend every item of privilege and resent every loss.

Further, such hostile and defensive attitudes are more likely to spread when others are rejoicing in their fall from grace. Maybe the Internet has done no more than bring to light what was already present under stones and lichen, but I find some of racial slurs and insults around this theme on the Web slightly alarming.

"I would ask my old chum John Derbyshire about it but I haven't seen him here lately...what happened to him again?"

We must defend white privileges so that whites will feel properly generous toward non-whites, as this is god's ordained order of the universe. Should non-whites achieve majority status and use this to secure the power that whites have historically possessed, whites may turn ugly and nobody wants to see that!

i wonder what magazine the more respectable hostile whites read

Jonah Goldberg weighs in on Nate Silver, saying a few somewhat reasonable things, except he misses the boat:

Still, isn’t it possible that the passionate defense Silver arouses from some people on the left has just a bit more to do with the comfort he dispenses than with the sophistication of his analysis?

Such as the cold comfort Nate Silver dispensed in the 2010 mid-terms, where he persistently and accurately predicted large losses by the democrats in the House of Representatives?

Sorry, Jonah. Your basic argument seems to be that it is relatively safe to ignore statistical analysis such as Nate's and, of course, there was nothing really odd about the fervor with which so many of your fellow conservative pundits all simultaneously decided to trash Silver and his blog, because, really, you know, he's just some guy who plays with numbers (shrug) and he could have been wrong and we could have been right. We all just pretend to know what's going on, amirite? Shoes show up on the other foot all the time.

Nope.

not sure jonah defensiveness isn't rooted more in gasbag pundit status than any conservatism or at least as much as

that Michael Walsh post is even funnier if you read it in Jafar's voice

obama won because of lena dunham's mesmeric sluttiness, argues jay nordlinger

Perhaps the current America simply would not and could not elect a Mitt Romney. He is, in a way, out of his time. Out of step. A throwback. That’s one reason I like him so.

In America today, we have 14-year-olds screwing like banshees. Everyone thinks that’s cool, or most people do. We have abortion on demand. Nobody gets married, except gays. Divorce is over 50 percent, I believe. It’s “no fault” divorce at that. “The culture is a sewer,” as my friend Mark Helprin says.

Could a Mitt Romney win in this environment? An environment that adores Bill Clinton? Cool is king. Obama is cool. Romney is not. He’s square.

You know that Obama sex ad, the one appealing to the hookup culture? “When it’s your first time, make sure it’s with a really cool guy — but not your husband, ha ha ha!” I have paraphrased. But you know the ad I’m talking about.

If that ad doesn’t backfire but actually succeeds, Romney can’t win.

There is no place for Ozzie Nelson in this culture. There is a place, of course — but not an election-winning place. A remnant place. You get to be the target on Saturday Night Live. Never the cool kid, never the mainstreamer.

In America today, we have 14-year-olds screwing like banshees. Everyone thinks that’s cool, or most people do. We have abortion on demand. Nobody gets married, except gays. Divorce is over 50 percent, I believe. It’s “no fault” divorce at that. “The culture is a sewer,” as my friend Mark Helprin says.

cats marrying dogs

I think Romney would have made an excellent president — a superb, sterling president. Perhaps an historic one, the “turnaround artist” we needed.

Initially read that as 'reacharound'

here is no place for Ozzie Nelson in this culture. There is a place, of course — but not an election-winning place.

funniest thing about Ozzie and Harriet was that Mr. Nelson never seemed to be employed, he just hung around the house all the time

Jay Nordlinger - the Lumpy Rutherford of cultural punditry

screwing like banshees?

living like lovers
rolling like thunder
under the covers

xpost I know right!

In America today, we have 14-year-olds screwing like banshees. Everyone thinks that’s cool, or most people do.

as a former banshee-like 14-year-old screw I wanna say that screwing saved my life. A+ screwing would screw again

Mendacity and Malice Won
By Mary Matalin
November 7, 2012 2:23 P.M. Comments128
What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform. Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division.

Mitt Romney distinguished himself and conservatism with a grounded, courageous, forward-thinking problem-solving reform agenda for a nation ready to renew and starved for leadership and maturity. He is a man of integrity and character, as is his whole family. And unlike in the 1996 and 2008 Republican campaigns, which — though led by men of great personal integrity — were marked by dead-end policy prescriptions, Romney/Ryan laid a durable philosophical and policy foundation for the next generation of conservative leadership.

Unfortunately and unfortuitously, forces of nature bookended the general election: Our convention was compromised by one weather disaster and our momentum stalled by another. Two human hurricanes also radically altered the political atmosphere: Bill Clinton’s unique windbaggery constituted a campaign updraft, while Chris Christie’s deplorable and gratuitous gas-baggery infused the campaign with a toxic political pollution.

Obama's a sociopath? did she mean to type "socialist" and then decided "ooh even better"? what a bitter old hag

xpost think you confused "banshee-like 14-year-old screw" with "screwed-up 14-year-old who likes Siouxsie and the Banshees"

A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform.

someone tell her not to worry; he lost!

Pretty sure Ricky Nelson was screwing 14 year olds.

Scriouxie and the Banshees

wow that Matalin piece is barely coherent

Well to be fair Carville probably came home the night before and just went "Heh heh heh" at her for twenty minutes.

So far, the only thing from the Corner today:

Work from Home for NRO as a Web Producer!
By NRO Staff
November 8, 2012 8:30 A.M.
National Review Online is seeking a daytime web producer — a full-time, work-from-home position for the right candidate. If you are a formidable and fast producer of quality web content, possessing a unique blend of editorial, tech, and artistic skills, this could be just the opportunity for you.

IE, "Dear god help us, we haven't changed anything about our design in years and all the actual cool designers we know in NYC and Washington think we're idiots."

Not The Corner but a doozy for the conservative meltdown file:

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2012/11/the-end-of-liberty-in-america-only.html

Oh we've been having fun with him for sure. Even made Gawker.

I can't keep up with all the nutjobbery.

Well to be fair Carville probably came home the night before and just went "Heh heh heh" at her for twenty minutes.

Saw her the morning after in CNN and she appeared to be still drunk

on CNN

speaking of...wtf Diane Sawyer

christ carville and matalin are like, what if a xenomorph and battle-mode ripley were pundits on tv? and married? fucking keep waiting for an interior mandible to pop out dude's mouth.

If you criticize the Ryan plan or if you criticize tax cuts for the rich, you are leveraging fear and ignorance.

as for non-NRO meltdowns, that creepily whispery guy from PAJAMAS MEDIA has a 90-minute election postmortem, which I can only imagine resembling one of the later scenes in Secret Honor

I hadn't seen that episode of The Office before. Steve Carrell is a talented guy, isn't he?

Oh the roffles:

http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/332980/my-family-moment-we-lost-ohio/nancy-french

And yes, we have a 'White People Mourning Romney' ready pic:

http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/files/2012/11/300765_1.jpg

YOU ARE A GROWN MAN. WHY ARE YOU WEARING A BASEBALL CAP TO A SEMI FORMAL EVENT? SMDH

Well, he saw those Ryan workout pics. He felt a stirring...

I am certain that pic is already on White People Mourning Romney

It better be.

that poor fuckn kid

The four year old back in Tennessee had it made.

kid looks simultaneously sad and smug somehow

That kid is my bro-in-law's 2 sons (ages 13 and 6) rolled into one. BIL has let more info slip on Facebook than he probably meant to about how the younger boy is picking up the O-hate from his parents -- spouting off "Obama is evil!" stuff out of the blue, presumably for Daddy's approval. I called Bro on it and he was fucking furious at me for reading between the lines, even as he admitted he would have to have a talk with his son about, I dunno, "tolerance" or something.

Hahah how HAS he been taking the last couple of days, anyway?

A lot of "good luck USA, you poor deluded fools" posts on election night, then radio silence. My post yesterday (about straight white male Privilege being a dirty-burning fossil fuel and Obama's reelection being the Right's global-warming-caused Katrina) referred obliquely to his boy's "Obama is evil!" comment without identifying him. About 30 minutes after I posted it, I was on the phone when another call came in; I saw that it was him and thought 'o christ I am not ready to have this fight.' Turns out he was just returning my sister's call on something completely unrelated.

The American culture war has been markedly intensified, as those who booed God, celebrated an unfettered abortion license, canonized Sandra Fluke, and sacramentalized sodomy at the Democratic National Convention will have been emboldened to advance the cause of lifestyle libertinism through coercive state power, thus deepening the danger of what a noted Bavarian theologian calls the “dictatorship of relativism.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332978/sifting-through-wreckage-george-weigel

A war in the Middle East is now almost certain, and sooner rather than later

um

an increasingly prevalent theme in conservatism seems to be fantasizing about its own demise. in a way this election kind of feeds the martyr-complex. doubly interesting that the "intolerance of intolerance" that they fear so much is the very paradoxical foundation of the continued existence of conservatism. one must think they wish the world would end already.

im not adverse to pessimism. but it'd hard to square the self-serving and put-upon sort offered by contemporary conservatives with their cheerleading of the "market"--the very thing driving the kind of societal changes they protest! how do they square this circle? (not that these sorts of contradictions are unique to conservatism.) you think if only a few things had gone differently in these guy's lives they'd just be old-school marxists.

yeah you'd like to think you could say "your brand totally sucks, how you gonna fix that"?

They're fantasizing about their own demise because a lot of them are old and are going to be dead soon anyway, being fucking blunt here. You're getting a lot of "Après moi, l'deluge" happening and they're revelling in it. The vaguely less psychopathic express concern for their kids or grandkids when I suspect a lot of them are thinking "Man, Grandpa's a weird dumb coot sometimes."

I mean that Buzzfeed bit I linked says as much in different terms/in a different context but it's the same deal -- old dudes acting shitty and younger ones going "Good Christ, no more AIDS jokes from you fuckfaces."

The American culture war has been markedly intensified, as those who booed God, celebrated an unfettered abortion license, canonized Sandra Fluke, and sacramentalized sodomy at the Democratic National Convention will have been emboldened to advance the cause of lifestyle libertinism through coercive state power, thus deepening the danger of what a noted Bavarian theologian calls the “dictatorship of relativism.”

frankly, i find the autoerotic alliteration of this passage more debauched than any of the political stances he complains about

i don't think "sacramentalized sodomy" plays well w/ the young ppl

This is what Frank Schaeffer calls the victim of modernity. I mean, this NRO guy's political stances emerge from pathology, of an increasingly desperate need for absolute certainty b/c he has not developed an adult self that is anywhere near able to handle ambiguity. You cling to things you think are fixed and unmoving b/c you cannot and will not see how your belief structures are actual structures that have been built in certain ways and for certain reasons. They're just "common sense" and can't be questioned.

Another thing I think is going on is that these dudes(online types especially) are drama queens who lead hella comfortable lives and who NEED a compelling narrative in life. You're not just an upper middle class suburbanite white dude living in a time of utmost historical comfort complaining about the loss of your privilege, you're a freedom fighter raging against the oncoming Armies of Darkness of Evil-doers. You build up the other side in your mind b/c you define yourself against them. You fuckin' require a world filled with dark forces and conspiracies and orcs and demons and shit that you can prove to yourself your a righteous hero against.

People who don't repeatedly loudly affirm and repeat your tribal platitudes are not just folks who live down the street who don't nec believe the things you do, they're the oncoming wave of the Other who will finally push civilization over the very thin precipiece it always teeters upon. They're not just progressives, they're far more evil and insidious than that. They're full-on satanic nazi baby killers.

Its a lot easier to believe that everyone else is way evil and thus you're good b/c you ain't them. Saves you the effort of actually putting in effort into being a good person.
It's like you're effin' Bonhoeffer b/c you dare stand against the nazi satanic baby killers with your half-assed twitter posts.

For those who haven't read it yet, I'll flog John Dean's _Conservatives Without Conscience_. Came out about 6 years ago, gets into the actual psych profiles of authoritarian followers and those who seek power to socially dominate them. Explains a lot.

You're not just an upper middle class suburbanite white dude living in a time of utmost historical comfort complaining about the loss of your privilege, you're a freedom fighter raging against the oncoming Armies of Darkness of Evil-doers.

^^^^same pathology that drives conspiracy theorists

an increasingly desperate need for absolute certainty b/c he has not developed an adult self that is anywhere near able to handle ambiguity.

think this nails it

that dean book sounds really interesting but also like the kind of book that would drive me insane w/ anger

that dean book sounds really interesting but also like the kind of book that would drive me insane w/ anger

then check Dr Bob Altenmeyer's _The Authoritarians_, who provided most of the academic work that John Dean drew on from that book. Its online for free or you can order hard-copies for cheap.

Whole thing here:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

You fuckin' require a world filled with dark forces and conspiracies and orcs and demons and shit that you can prove to yourself your a righteous hero against.

what's sad is you can have this for $9.99/month

I read the Dean book a couple of years ago on Kingfish's recommendation and it is pretty infuriating but well worth it.

Like I've said in other threads, much of the republican bullshit that happens is psychologically driven, not political. It's the exact same reason rightwing born-again types(also republicans) make the douchebag immoral pronouncements they do about how God wants you to have that rape-baby. This has fuck all to do with actual theological belief or political belief, this is shit generated by infantilized adolescents who ain't adults, they're only middle-aged.

However, rational thought and self-awareness and the ability to do honest self-reflection are hard fuckin' skills to learn, especially if you've been raised in an authoritarian abusive culture where unquestioned obedience to authority is the paramount command that is beaten into you from infancy. Seriously, read some Dobson child-raising shit sometime.

That's why I get pissed on online left-leaning political talk, in that we're stuck on this late-18th-C Enlightenment Era self-interest rational thought model of how people think, and thus can't understand how the post-Goldwater GOP got so successful with the weird horseshit they started spinning. Not everybody thinks the way we do. Hell, not everybody gives shit one about accuracy. Your Leader said something, you must defend it to the death and never question it. etc etc etc

what's sad is you can have this for $9.99/month

dude, seriously, exactly. why do you think people get addicted to Warcraft for fuckin' years, or die in south korean online cafes from gaming sessions that last longer than it takes to beat Diablo III 2x or something.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a_7u51Vy91A/TUSyzEUhtTI/AAAAAAAAAHM/nQfQyuTzK5k/s320/51TLNEMLE%252BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken is about this, so far, since I'm only in the first coupla chapters. It talks about how games demonstrate our needs, since they can scratch that itch so well. Far better to get your visceral thrill by playing Call of War: Black Cops II than voting for warmongering fuckheads and then cheering them on during Fox News broadcasts later when they start invading.

Tho admittedly the book is far more about work and dayjobs.

a game called Black Cops might get me back into gaming

ha in another thread just now i was posting that CoD games in particular probably aren't helpful on the warmongering fuckhead front. fighting for the horde on the other hand (or even for the obv p fascist and mageocratic alliance) i have no objection to in itself.

i really didn't like that mcgonigal book :/

I think it's known as COD:BLOPS2 in some regions

great posts kingfish. I like that phrase "victims of modernity"

I've gotten it from different places, most recently in Frank Schaeffer's Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--And How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway

or "victimized by modernity", too

It's a nice phrase because it hints at the particular kind of trauma that seems to be working itself out at NRO.

i don't want to overstate this case but it seems like nixon's southern strategy, which kept the republican party competitive despite ideological shifts in analogous western countries, is failing. one really striking thing to me about this NYTimes graphic is while the entire country was getting bluer in 2008, the southern states were getting redder. and even when the rest of the country was getting redder in 2012, those states were getting even more dramatically red. and still, pumping the white racist vote as hard as possible, the electorate wasn't favorable enough to get the republican elected. i think it barely dragged GWB - an immigration friendly, compassionate conservative - across the line the first time (arguably not at all in 2000). that's why even if they wanted to open the tent to latinos or gays or women the base won't let them.

i hope this is right and i'm not just being optimistic.

if true, tho, lbj is the most important democratic president and caro is right to spend so much time writing about him

I would be surprised to see the southern strategy deployed to the same extent in the future. At least on a national level.

On the other hand I think the democratic demographic advantage is gonna be way overstated. It'll take time but don't underestimate a two-party system's ability to exploit fault lines in the electorate. We'll be a "divided country" just over different issues.

that's why even if they wanted to open the tent to latinos or gays or women the base won't let them.

Yeah all these think pieces on What The GOP Needs To Do Next are inevitably saying "look ditch the culture war stuff, it's over, you lost and gay women who smoke drugs won" and, yeah, sure, that sounds great and all, but are the people writing these things aware of how dug in the actual voting base of the GOP is against these things? You don't just ditch evangelicals, but you also just don't convince them the parts of the bible they've cared most about for the last 20 years don't really matter anymore.

xpost

Problem is, culture war is all they got

if true, tho, lbj is the most important democratic president and caro is right to spend so much time writing about him
--Mordy

LBJ is the most important democratic president period.

FDR?

FDR and Wilson were hugely important sure, but Johnson's legacy towers over the past 50+ years (both good and bad obv.)

anyway, i guess i'm always skeptical of epochal shifts in culture, politics, etc but maybe that's what makes this election feel much more historically important to me than even 2008 - that it really does seem like things are shifting in dramatic ways. in that way i agree w/ republicans who are rending garments and bemoaning the death of the country - i just don't see this transformation as a negative thing.

The GOP isn't going to do an about face and march in the opposite direction. They'll just try tweaking the recipe a bit, sops to latinos here and there, moving more of their abortion message into dog-whistle range, hitting harder on defense, but less hard on Medicare, and so on. The ingredients list won't change so much as the proportions.

And they can't tell their oldest members to die faster. Unless they create their own death panels and say, weeping as they do so, "See what Obamacare has made us do! Okay oldtimer choose your poison."

Let’s Not Open a Catering Firm
By Fred Schwarz

Everyone is saying the Republicans need to adopt policies that will appeal to this or that group: the middle class, Hispanics, women, Asians, whatever. They call this “putting together a coalition” or “modernizing the party” or “adapting to demographic reality,” but whatever they call it, it’s exactly the wrong thing to do.

actually, the corner right now is a cornucopia of batshittery

Continual self-reassurance and affirmation are ongoing mission-critical things to these guys. Remember, if you can't hand self-reflection or the possibility that you could be wrong(b/c that would shatter the shakey absolutes you need the world to be built on), you can never, ever second-guess yourself, or even check your own work. Admission of imperfection is tantamount to moral weakness allowing evil to come swarming in and Civilization to topple.

Remember when they asked Dubya to talk about a mistake he'd made? He could do it. He couldn't allow himself to admit any failing ever, as that would shatter his worldview as Unquestioned Authority from God and self-concept.

black, white, purple, whatever

Kingfish's diagnosis is OTM. I dug out Hofstadter's Paranoid Style for a blog I was writing about the election and his description fits the current GOP perfectly almost 50 years after he wrote it - the quasi-religious need to believe that your foes are evil and powerful and you must show no mercy or empathy and you are a better person for battling them. The same logic applies to conspiracy theorists on the left but they don't run the Dems.

Basically the GOP doesn't need an election strategist, it needs a psychotherapist.

you also just don't convince them the parts of the bible they've cared most about for the last 20 years don't really matter anymore.

eh...I actually think their willingness to follow currents, to suddenly start caring about "Chicago politics" because they're told that's a thing for example, would mean that if some movers and shakers in their ranks called for a "return to our core values" and then defined those values as excluding the parts that're diminishing their chances over time, it'd be effective, and we'd get a sort of hyper-Reaganite age of sociopathic shit disguised as concern - broader social measures that mimicked the Crisis Pregnancy Center approach of pretending to help while harming.

fortunately for everybody I don't think they have any leaders in the bullpen who think like this.

I just feel like the basic bind everyone's been observing for years - - GOP primaries will produce candidate that purple states will not vote for, and full red states are not enough to win presidential election - - - is real and not easily broken. Those voters are not going to throw aside being anti-choice, for example, as "not one of their core values."

BTW, it's basically only the presidency that this presents a problem for. They could make minor cosmetic changes and keep on trucking out blood-red candidates at all other levels, and keep on trucking. I feel like this will be the path of least resistance, compared to some attempt to launch a DLC-type reinvention, or rescheduling the primaries to marginalize Tea Party energies. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there were some shockingly moderate challenger candidate in 2016 - but it would surprise me a lot if they got any traction at all. Remember the primary field this last time! The voice of reason was, what, Jon Huntsman?

ugh that's really badly-written, sorry, pre-coffee here

There's also just the idea that, especially when it comes to Corner writers (not just them, of course), they deserve to be 'heard' by those in power. Not something only happening on the right, obviously, but for illustrative purposes combine it with these other tendencies mentioned and there ya go, and there's PLENTY of coasting on the Buckley coattails still to explain that ("Hey he had a TV show, he was important, we're important, aren't we?"). When W. was in office there was plenty of name-dropping along those lines, mentioning connections and discussions and so forth with the White House and staffers there. Of course, the current occupant and his staffers could give a rat's ass for them now and so they have the further feeling of 'why aren't they listening to meeeeeeeee' driving them nuts, so one reason why they crashed so hard this week is that they almost...just...got back to where they should be in their minds. Which is why they've been desperately trying to figure out how/why it didn't happen and they seem to have decided that the answers are to blame Christie and to plan photo ops at Taco Bell.

If that analysis is true, it certainly explains the NRO cruise

David Frum (no surprise) said this morning – Scarborough asked him to repeat it – that conservatives have been "fleeced and exploited" for years by a conservative commentariat that, among other things, has insisted taxes have increased in the last four years, entitlement spending is in the billions, and Marxism is on the rise. The surprisingly thoughtful comments here, responding to one of the worst bamboozlers of the last week, suggest some of the flock is awakening.

Speaking of nimrods, uhhhhhhh:

President Obama did not lose, he won. It was not all that close. There was enthusiasm on his side. Mitt Romney's assumed base did not fully emerge, or rather emerged as smaller than it used to be. He appears to have received fewer votes than John McCain. The last rallies of his campaign neither signaled nor reflected a Republican resurgence. Mr Romney's air of peaceful dynamism was the product of a false optimism that, in the closing days, buoyed some conservatives and swept some Republicans. While GOP voters were proud to assert their support with lawn signs, Democratic professionals were quietly organizing, data mining and turning out the vote. Their effort was a bit of a masterpiece; it will likely change national politics forever. Mr. Obama was perhaps not joyless but dogged, determined, and tired.

Apart from those points, everything in my blog post of Nov. 5 stands.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578107460045098692.html

http://i48.tinypic.com/335419k.png

Alfred, can you quote the whole thing or IS that the whole thing? In which case I salute her for relative brevity.

the Noonan quote? It's from today's comic strip.

Oh no, I saw the link, I just meant was there any more to her piece than that.

Excite the base, Hispanics, Rubio, weep

Haha well there you go.

does she realize that at least half(?) of these hispanics are still women?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/333063/amnesty-best-revenge-mark-krikorian

this is the writing of a man in the grips of psychosis

We were beginning to sense that the crime of Benghazi (not listening to pre-attack requests for increased security; not sending help immediately from the annex to the besieged consulate; not rushing in additional military forces during the hours-long attack) and the cover-up (inventing the video narrative of a spontaneous demonstration gone wild to support a pre-election administration narrative of an impotent al-Qaeda, a successful Libya, a positive Arab Spring, and a cool, competent Commander in Chief, slayer of bin Laden, and architect of momentous Middle East change) were not the entire story of the 9/11/2012 attack: Why was there a consulate at all in Benghazi, given that most nations have shut down their main embassies in Tripoli? Why was there such a large CIA contingent nearby — what were they doing and why and for whom? Why did the ambassador think he needed more security when so many CIA operatives were stationed just minutes away? What was the exact security relationship between the annex and the consulate, and why the apparent quiet about it? Who exactly were the terrorist hit-teams, and did they have a particular agenda, and, if so, what and for whom? All these questions had not been answered and probably would have been raised during the scheduled Petraeus testimony — which is apparently now canceled, but why that is so, no one quite knows. And if Hillary Clinton departs, and perhaps Susan Rice and James Clapper as well, then the principals of the decision-making chain leave with more questions raised than answered. We are sort of back to a Watergate-like timeline of a scandal raised but not explored in a first term, only to blow up in the second.

WATERGATE-LIKE

While we’re at it, on the brink of another four years, the key point about Barack Obama is not that he’s a secret Muslim Kenyan Commie or whatever. Whether he was born in Honolulu or Mombasa or Stockholm or up on Planet Zongo, what matters (as I write in my book) is that in his general worldview he is entirely typical and perfectly representative of tens upon tens of millions of Americans. Tuesday’s majority confirmed that. They don’t need a “conspiracy”: They agree with him. That’s the problem.

we're all secret muslim kenyan commies now

planet zongo in the house y'all

They agree with him. That’s the problem.

(after which he whispers hoarsely) The horror! The horror!

Whether he was born in Honolulu or Mombasa or Stockholm or up on Planet Zongo

i don't care if you're black, white, purple

kingfish otm upthread w/the psych analysis. obama otm too, "cling to religion and guns".

not developed an adult self that is anywhere near able to handle ambiguity.

corollary is not being able to handle a chaotic, entropic universe lacking a guiding hand. the power of human agency in shaping and constantly reshaping life on Earth, that responsibility vested in such flawed entities, is too terrifying to be true. so even when it's clear that humans have shaped things, they must've been divinely inspired. Or said shapers get deified themselves. (or both.) Primary example that comes to mind is Founding Fathers (always capitalized). These guys had figured it all out for us, no need to think, no need to tweak and improve the model.

Anybody else ever read Michel Hollecbeq's(sp) bio of HP Lovecraft? It talked about the dude failing at life, which allowed him to pull into his own head and create all this stuff, b/c that's all he got.

These guys remind me of that, only they believe the mythos they spin. The illuminati is real, y'all! Etc

Ah, Maggie Gallagher:

I want to make a new case: Latinos are not opposed to sensible immigration policy. They are opposed to rhetoric that suggests that conservatives do not care about them.

*snaps fingers a bit* Now, let's see, unfortunate rhetoric, and the reason why you lost many gay voters and marriage equality is happening more and more is...?

Mother of 4 • an hour ago

−

Rewarding lawbreaking does not in any way go along with Christian principles. Christ told us to "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." Paul admonished us to obey our rulers because their rule is part of God's order.

Children of illegal aliens DO have a country -- the country in which they were born. How is their situation different from the children of missionaries or military personal who were raised entirely abroad returning to the US as adults?

If it were some dreadful punishment for a person to not reside in the USA the only moral course for America would be immediately embark on a war of conquest with the aim of bringing the entire world into the USA so that no person can ever be punishing in that fashion again.

Well we tried that already.

Latinos are not opposed to sensible immigration policy. They are opposed to rhetoric that suggests that conservatives do not care about them.

"All we need to do is to get our elected officials and Presidential candidates to tone down the 'Latinos are vermin' talk and they're sure to immediately swing our way because, blah blah, blah, Jesus."

yes but will the Divine Ms. G do when she realizes quite a few of those grateful Latinos are gay

I know it's only like 3% of he electorate, but I'd live to hear them weigh in on why Asians broke Dem 70/30

It's funny that the people who are most opposed to immigration are also the ones that squawk about moving to Canada or Ireland (or whatever other random country) because of the election. So those countries should just welcome you with open arms because you're white and angry with Obama? Not that I expect any of these people to really attempt to emigrate, but the hypocritical entitlement they feel is pretty amusing.

any country would sure welcome all the dynamism that top level blogging skills would bring to their economy

The Lopez cruise report:

I’m on the NR Cruise, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. We’ve had rough seas so couldn’t dock in port yesterday and won’t get off rough seas until tomorrow. Can’t help but to think it’s a metaphor for something.

Trying to imagine all those feebs puking over the side...

So basically, NRO.

the problem runs so much deeper, even deeper than failed software

Typically laser-like Lopez insight there.

did she just admit that Romney is an android?

I hope so.

Quarantine seems like a terrible way adapt an isolated party to widespread appeal. Can you imagine the echo chamber on the boat?

is that in his general worldview he is entirely typical and perfectly representative of tens upon tens of millions of Americans.

Thsi genuinely makes me laugh. He is so partisnally attached to 'the Right' that he'd rather draw the wrong conclusions than admit to being wrong at the ground level. It's akin to the time Huckabee accused the President in an odd amalgam of racism and xenophobia and left-over Cold War rhetoric of having too anti-colonialist a world view, presumably because of his father. I wondered out loud to the TV after he'd said this, whether we should therefore repudiate the Founding Fathers and ask the British back.

Care to Join the NR Cruise?
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
November 15, 2012 12:11 P.M. Comments0

Grand Cayman — This doesn’t require money or reservations. Tomorrow I’ll be interviewing the power-couple Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz. If you were in my seat, what would you ask them?

It’s a great opportunity to download wisdom and experience on a whole host of issues — help me narrow it down!

"why am I on this horrifying cruise? can I just stay here and make my own way home?"

BRB downloadin' Lopez wisdom.

*brain has performed an illegal operation and must shut down*

no money or reservations! Why don't we hit this cruise and meet the rest of the crew at Fieri'ss afterwards?

is that a contraction of "Fieri ass"?

... you know sometimes you say or write something and then think "oh I shouldn't have said that"

Fieri'ass

^^^ the forgotten Dragonlance character

http://newfrontier.com/2/Ram_Dass2.jpg

Pontiac Fierass

omg omg omg omg omg omg

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/333680/knuckle-non-sandwiches-jay-nordlinger

Uh

I've already caught up on my TV comedies, so this is timely.

(alternatively, “Respec’”)

PATea • 2 hours ago
I do not fist bump. If someone offers a fist to me, I grab it and shake it. That's how conservative I am.

can someone try this on the upper east side and see if those snobs get it? haha wassup snobs ;)

Did Nordlinger forget about "terrorist fist jabs"?

comment from PATea clearly lifted from that ron paul dude who threatened to punch every democrat he knew or w/e

heard he says "respec" while shaking tho

Michael Walsh gunning hard to be the worst person on earth:

Re that Marco Rubio interview in GQ, it’s the opening salvo in the 2016 presidential race, sure, but it’s much more than that. It’s also the opening salvo from the Big Berthas of the media to start softening up potential Republican candidates, especially overtly conservative ones. It’s an extension and refinement of the Sarah Palin Strategy, in which the long guns pound the reputation of the victim into rubble by marginalizing him or her as an “outside the mainstream” kook. The easiest way to do this — just ask surefire, can’t-lose senators like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock or, for that matter president Mitt Romney — is to slip in a question that reinforces the Left’s beloved “narrative” that conservatives are Christian racist know-nothings, seething with animus against the post-Marx “modern” world and then let them hang themselves. I thought Rubio handled the burning question “How old do you think the Earth is?” pretty well

it's post-darwin, dumbass

...the only moral course for America would be immediately embark on a war of conquest...

^^ said the follower of the Prince of Peace.

"why am I on this horrifying cruise? can I just stay here and make my own way home?"

― I loves you, PORGI (DJP), Thursday, November 15, 2012 1:48 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hugely underrated post

OMG OMG OMG

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/253806/white-castle-thanksgiving-kathryn-jean-lopez

in fairness, the first time she linked it she called it the worst idea ever and readers yelled at her for it

I've read a lot of vile things on the Corner over the years, but that really takes the cake.

(no pickles)

Submitted by White Castle Family of Columbus, OH

Please indulge me in a fantasy of the entire NRO crew, lurching in stormy seas, unable to dock, passing around Thanksgiving platters of K-Lo's Stuffing Surprise while stale dinner rolls toddle to and fro across the wildly see-sawing table.

Disgusting. Also accurate.

White Castle Stuffing sounds both

A) awesome.

B) like a dare. Do we have any takers this year?

jjj and fluffy bear

Gary Stoneking
11/23/10 13:58

I just threw up a little bit. I'll be OK.

would eat of shame

If you volunteered for the "let's eat at Guy Fieri's Times Square Shit-stravaganza" future FAP don't even front that you wouldn't eat a turkey stuffed with sliders,

My dad found a giant dead spider inside a White Castle slider when I was a kid, so just thinking about them makes me sick. I don't know (yet) about any dead spiders in Fieri's food.

spider sauce

White Castle Stuffing sounds both
A) awesome.

B) like a dare. Do we have any takers this year?

― the max in the high castle (kingfish), Tuesday, November 20, 2012 3:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jjj and fluffy bear

― mookieproof, Tuesday, November 20, 2012 4:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't throw me into that briar patch, ilx.

Having a bit of fun with Jonah, who wrote things like

If the GOP wants to win more black votes, it will need to get a lot more "racist." The scare quotes are necessary because I don't think the Republican Party is racist now (and, historically, the GOP has a lot less to answer for than the Democratic Party does). But that hasn't stopped a lot of people from slandering Republicans as racist for one reason or another.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/jonah-goldberg-republicans-black-vote-112312

it's like that recent tom friedman column, where he talked about how he was "pro-life", but then pulled the old switcheroo to explain that he really meant just pro, life, like anti death. & goldberg is saying yes, i am as you call it "racist", though with less of a destination in mind

being a less clever writer than Tom Friedman is a sorry fate

tom friedman without the part where it makes you think

"... public intellectuals who don't owe their jobs to their vulpine mommies ..."

So Jonah Goldberg is famous due to his Cougar MILF? Or does he mean that Lucianne has 6 tits?

cause TBH I didn't know the two were related until I looked it up just now.

Yup, pretty much. Got his gig via the Lewinsky scandal

I am dying over KLo going off on twitter about what a bitch Lucy from Peanuts is. A sampling:

@kathrynlopez

Lucy is a metaphor for the way our culture treats men, isn't she? #WatchingpoorCharlieBrownforthesecondweekinarow

if only k-lo had her schroeder

@kathrynlopez

"Charlie Brown is a blockhead, but ..." Lucy, just enjoy the good guys around you for once....

oh god this poor idiot

is K-Lo a Brownie?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me871pwvie1qa9bmvo1_500.png

stages of grief

What in the world.

Did people really believe that jobs would just magically, spontaneously appear all over the US if Romney was elected? Christ.

how does one look forward to a First Lady

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/magicinfoto/magicinfoto0901/magicinfoto090100110/4204489-young-woman-in-the-alps-mountains-looking-forward-winter-sport-series.jpg

How 'bout a hairdryer for the boy in your life?

Did people really believe that jobs would just magically, spontaneously appear all over the US if Romney was elected? Christ.

It was a belief that was surprisingly widespread, that everyone was waiting to hire when the proper president was elected. So don't be surprised to see this crop up again.

maybe her husband was waiting to hear back from papa john's

Maybe her husband IS Papa John.

Maybe her husband is

http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Pizza-the-Hut.jpg

"heather page wilson-egleston" can't be a real name, it's like if bingo little had a girlfriend in georgia

these people understand business

oh c'mon – those names are common in Saki and Powell.

Vulgar, even

John Yoo explains the similarities between Jews and Asians:

To me, the similarities between Jews and Asians are compelling. Both have higher incomes and educational levels than the average American. Both hail from a number of different countries and often emigrated here with high amounts of human capital but low levels of material capital. Both come from cultures — despite the broad definition of Asian — that respect and prize scholarship and intellectuals. Both are discriminated against — unconstitutionally, in my view — in college and university admissions, and once, no doubt, in government hiring and contracting. Both prize family values and seem to be more religious than the average voter.

Both groups like Chinese food a lot.

I dunno, that's a little tortured

I think the second graf is Yoo's idea of a joke.

maybe he learned it on the NRO Cruise

we already know yoo's much funnier than that from "Executive Overreach by John Yoo"

Both are discriminated against — unconstitutionally, in my view — in college and university admissions, and once, no doubt, in government hiring and contracting. Both prize family values and seem to be more religious than the average voter.

I can't even

The similarities between Asians and Jews, as explained entirely by the stereotypes they enjoy in the USA. What I want to know, Dr. Yoo, is what about the earwax thing? Explain that away, mr. hot shot law prof.

something else asians and jews share in common is our demographic numbers. there are approximately 4 billion asians in the world and a whole 13 million jews.

are there really that few jews?

yup and it really puts in perspective the demographic effect of the holocaust

no kidding, wow. i just checked wiki, and it says that there's only 2.6M jews in the US (some 4% of the population). i was typing out a sentence that said something like "and you'd think that 4% of the world's population would be substantially more than 13M" and then i remembered ASIA, and Africa, and all the places jews basically don't live, and that i am stupid.

i guess it says something about the people i've associated with over the years, cuz way more than 4% of my friends and associates have been jewish (though i'm probably over-estimating that, and biased by the fact that many of my ~closest~ friends are jewish).

guys i know some jews is what i'm saying here

I love everything about this post

haha ditto

I keep hearing, "He knows some Jews. He really likes 'em," in Mark McKinney's voice.

fact: one of the two jews (twins!) enrolled in HSTNGS HS at the time of my graduation was my med school classmate

MAKES U THINK

if it makes you think about cultural superiority and the perils of reverse racism, i have a good website for you.

ha

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Krauthammer_Charlesharrywalkeragency.jpg

every time I see the name "Krauthammer" I keep imagining him as a cabbage-obsessed Gallagher

what about when you see him

i think 'craven lickspittle to the powerful'

Kathryn Jean Lopez ‏@kathrynlopez

You, Too, Can Be Mary Magdalene http://shar.es/6c5gE

Ted Seeber says:
October 30, 2012 at 11:40 am
If the fish feel badly, think how the bicycles feel. The only use men seem to have in modern life is as sperm donors, unwanted after conception, in fact dangerous to raising children.

I lived with that pain for the first 32 years of my life.

Wow! You lived with Ted Seeber for 32 years?

:(

xxxp, ha, came here to post that alfred

Thomas Sowell must be auditioning for Andy Rooney's job:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/333788/hotels-and-hassles-thomas-sowell

2nd to last line is fucking killing me

hahahaha... I think someone's been watching too much "Hotel Hell."

"dazzling array of knobs and levers" is blowing my mind. Can a shower really be that complicated?!

tbh I've seen some crazy shower handles

but figuring them out is fun!

You, Too, Can Be Mary Magdalene http://shar.es/6c5gE

another piece in which the continuing "it's not just abortion, it's contraception" thing that's been slowly gathering steam gets some airing

KJL: Can we reclaim sisterhood? Women being supportive of one another without being hostile to men?
TOMEO: We have to or else if we don’t it will be our demise. “Sisterhood” by the world’s terms is all about “pelvic politics” as my friend Pia de Solenni says — contraception and abortion on demand no matter what the costs and it is costing women plenty. We rarely hear the truth about how abortion and contraception is hurting women. The Pill was declared a Group One carcinogen by the World Health Organization seven years ago!

I actively pray to God that they keep trying to push the "truth about contraception" line, as it's very similar to telling the American people "I'm going to hip you to why you don't actually like hamburgers"

^^^ yup

also loled at future-randian-utopia proclamation the misguided notion of sisterhood as defined back in the day by a few radical, vocal women.

so taking The Pill is like taking carbon monoxide in capsule form eh

Apparently it kills the tiny people that live in women's ovaries with cancer.

that hotel column is fucking incredible, every line

Being a luxury hotel, this one provided bathrobes. But I had my own bathrobe.

Why the turning on of a television set should be anything other than the obvious to a newly arrived hotel guest is apparently a question that never occurred to the people who ran this hotel.

Apparently it was not considered sporting to come right out and tell you how to get hot water or cold water.

america's greatest living philosopher

who the hell are these people who have problems turning on lights

who the hell brings his own bathrobe on vacation

the type of person who can't turn on a television

It is easier to get on the Internet at almost any institution other than a hotel.

I bet he turns off the light switches and bathroom taps with his own bathrobe so as not contaminate his hands.

Who the hell writes a column painting himself as a Mr Bean-style omni-incompetent incapable of operating a light switch?

someone who believes Plessy v. Ferguson was correctly decided

he should loan the bathrobe to jonah
wetcreepwithlaptop.jpg

The bathrobe was my favorite detail.

"The maids stripped my sheets off the bed and removed my towels from the bathroom despite the fact that they are clearly not the same color as the hotel's."

"I noticed that the desk chair I brought with me had disappeared as well..."

haha we're a half step away from having this dude repaint every hotel room he stays in the color of his bedroom and then boggling at the attendant surcharge

http://www.nationalreview.com/sites/default/files/nfs/uploaded/page_2012_200_sowell_square.jpg

he spent an hour stippling that backdrop before his headshot was taken

He's smiling that way, right now.

He died years ago, but his body is still animated by his need to get the brakes on his rental car fixed.

he's about due for another Peter Robinson segment.

IIRC he was the guy who wanted a military coup a few years ago.

but Robinson likes him!

Here's the post to which Ned refers: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220788/dont-get-weak/thomas-sowell

I love how his musing over a coup is just a non-sequitur in a long rambling get off my lawn tirade.

Is your employer poorer by the amount of money he pays you? Probably not, or you would never have been hired. Why then should we assume that a corporation or its customers are poorer by the amount paid to its chief-executive officer?

A review of one of the many environmentalist books says that even if you can’t do all you would like toward “living green,” you can at least “congratulate yourself on taking small steps to improve the planet.” That is what environmentalism — and much else on the political Left’s agenda — is really all about, self congratulation.

Just watching Suze Orman for a few moments while channel surfing is enough to make me feel exhausted.

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Just watching Suze Orman for a few moments while channel surfing is enough to make me feel exhausted.

otm

Thomas Sowell and Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, in Grumpy Old Men 3: the harumphing

And who would be the object of their affections and romantic rivalry?

http://i2.listal.com/image/63054/200full-.jpg

you guys he had a toilet that wouldn't stop running so he replaced it with a new toilet

Ponies otm

haha I think I reached an eyerolling threshold and tapped out because I completely missed the last two paragraphs of that.

I am now a huge fan of his random thoughts columns:

One of the most foolish, and most dangerous, things one can do is to take love for granted, instead of nurturing it and safeguarding it as the prize jewel of one's life.

Whenever you hear people talking about "a living Constitution," almost invariably they are people who are in the process of slowly killing it by "interpreting" its restrictions on government out of existence.

Do either Barack Obama or his followers have any idea how many countries during the 20th century set out to "spread the wealth" -- and ended up spreading poverty instead? At some point, you have to turn from rhetoric, theories and ideologies to facts.

I am so old that I can remember when liberals were liberal -- instead of being intolerant of anything and anybody that is not politically correct.

Whatever happened to Julie Banderas of the Fox News Channel? She had brains, looks, wit and personality. Has she met with foul play? Or has some zillionaire married her and taken her off to his own private island?

I am so old that I can remember when liberals were liberal

This isn't a morbs quote?

i think bloomberg has named manhattan his own private island, he should check there

I can remember when liberals were liberal

Tsk! tsk! Here is a conservative identifying liberality as a covertly positive trait. He is deviating from the party line and may need to be purged.

yes but then conservatives could only claim Michael Steele and Slobbo for their own.

During the campaign, Obama ran an ad featuring an actress named Lena Dunham. It was pitched to young women, and to the hook-up culture they inhabit — and that almost everybody inhabits.

“Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody,” said the actress. “You want to do it with a great guy.” She was not talking about a husband. (Hope I haven’t given you too great a shock.)

Question: In a country in which that ad doesn’t backfire but succeeds, can a man like Mitt Romney be elected?

“The culture is a sewer.” I heard Mark Helprin say that, some years ago. It hasn’t gotten any less sewer-y. Almost everywhere I walk, certainly in Manhattan, I see ads — just ads, now — that are frankly pornographic. No one bats an eye, I guess. It’s just normal, the new wallpaper.

“Paganism holds all the most valuable advertising space,” wrote T. S. Eliot. That was a long time ago. He hadn’t seen anything.

our sewer-y pagan hookup culture

Be sure to take the NRO user survey.

Look who's back:

I have never seen Mad Men, but I understand it’s an excellent show. I also understand that it’s the Left’s view of what America was like before the Left took over everything, basically. (Do you know what I mean by that?) Mark Helprin says that the show is, at its core, a lie. He knew the world depicted in the show very well; the show smears that world.

guess who

i heard 'lost', at its core, was a lie as well

what about "happy days"

do you know what I mean by that?

During the campaign, Obama ran an ad featuring an actress.

"The culture is a sewer.” I heard Mark Helprin say that, some years ago. It hasn’t gotten any less sewer-y.

hey here's another great out-of-context quote from TSE:

In the present ubiquity of ignorance, one cannot but suspect that many who call themselves Christians do not understand what the word means, and that some who would vigorously repudiate Christianity are more Christian than many who maintain it.

Well done there:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/this_may_take_a_while.php?ref=fpblg

From TPM Reader TL …

"So, I know that comments on the demographics of the electorate are so 3 weeks ago. But this was so rich it shouldn’t be missed.

"Today, The Corner linked to a conversation with Jonah Goldberg and John O’Sullivan on “the problem of demographics for the Republican coalition.” The pull-quote in the link explained that if the GOP is to win over asian-american and latino voters, it it must “persuade them to think of themselves primarily as Americans.” I can’t understand why they’re having trouble, given this keen understanding of the voters they’re trying to reach."

Indeed, getting Asians and Hispanics to try being Americans for once may not be the best way to Republicanize these outlanders. Actually the full quote is possibly better:

“I see that the way we will get the Hispanics and the other groups, the Asians, as part of the Republican Coalition is to get them first part of the great American Coalition. Make them think of themselves, not make but, persuade them to think of themselves primarily as Americans. Restore the overarching, all-encompassing concept of an American identity, which we used to have, which we knew how to bring about and which in the last 20 or 30 years very largely as a result of the democrats wanting to emphasize ethnicity rather than American-ness. We have lost that and frankly one of the reasons we have not regained it and doing very badly at the moment is because the Republicans have neither had the imagination nor the courage to think how they could appeal to these other ethnic groups as Americans and craft an appeal that won them over. They have got to do that.”

that is amazing

not make but, persuade

"Resistance is futile inconvenient."

Republicans have neither had the imagination nor the courage

straight up irl dramatic irony

i'd worry about the cognitive dissonance of giving special attention to minorities but that requires cognition so i guess they're ok.

idgaf what this is even about

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/334969/ed-asner-asks-ihannityi-producer-can-i-piss-you-eliana-johnson

...persuade them to think of themselves primarily as Americans whites. Restore the overarching, all-encompassing concept of an American a WASP identity, which we used to have.

fixed

hahaha wow Ed Asner

Speaking of WASP identity, I assume this election the first time to have no WASPs on either ticket? (Not counting Mormons as WASPs.)

I expect that Mitt would self-identify as a WASP. It's the prep school ideal that he was raised with. Plus, Mormons may see themselves as a group apart, but not apart from the protestant ethos.

yes one must make do with close substitutes these days.

mitt was more wasp-y than clinton or dole even if he was not technically a wasp

Wealthy Anglo-Saxon Prepschooler

oh ed asner u r awesome

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335116/legal-reasons-they-dont-actually-touch-each-other-during-sex-scenes-kathryn-jean-lopez

the horror

Alan Keyes brings a special level of batshit to the table here

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/imagine-theres-no-choice/

"the rich, fresh-baked aroma of home"

http://www.losthematheory.com/SiteImages/000000000000000000000000luke.jpg

Alan Keyes is retarded, right

Do pro-life people not understand that the entire point of the pro-choice position isn't that everyone should have an abortion but that every woman deserves the right to decide whether they want to carry their pregnancy to term or not?

no

The "pro-lifers" do tend to overlook the choice aspect of the matter, but their main contention seems to be that abortion is the exact equivalent of infanticide and therefore morally inadmissable in any case whatsoever, even if giving birth kills the mother. This idea rivets their attention almost to the exclusion of all else.

What they do not seem to grasp at all is that there are profound legal and practical reasons why fetuses are not considered fully formed humans, as opposed to potential humans who do not yet have the legal status of indivduals. For example, what is the legal status of a miscarriage? How can society know whether or not the mother induced the miscarriage without requiring an inquest to establish a cause? And wouldn't imbibing alcohol during pregnancy be a clear case of child abuse?

The can of worms opened by this line of thinking is incredibly complex and nasty. But the emotions around it are so powerful they provide a substitute for thought.

Abortion lets slutty women get away with fornication without consequence, so they're against it. That's why you get KLo types going on about contraception, too.

On one of the two gay marriage threads:

Elon Green

I'm glad the non-married virgin has weighed in on this issue. I look forward to Nordlinger's take on the NHL lockout.

which, you know, OTM.

Jamie Foxx Jokes on SNL About Obama Being ‘Extra Black’ In His Second Term
By Nathaniel Botwinick
December 9, 2012 9:27 P.M.

not reading that, nope

But it's from noted extra black expert Nathaniel Botwinick.

It's just a short description of two things Jamie Foxx said in his opening monologue. It's bait for NRO's audience, and they hit all the usual notes in the comments.

This comment gets extra points:

The Zman 3 hours ago
The suicide cult we call the American left laps this stuff up because they think it makes them the height of cleverness and sophistication. After all, all the cool kids want to shed this mortal coil. What better way to end it all than to have a noble black man take you out in a race tinged rage? Sure, it would have been better to have never been born, but that's something they already gave to their kids, the ones they aborted in college.

dear god

After reading that and the Keys piece, I'm starting to see trails.

K-Lo meets the Pope. World continues to turn.

The Zman...

At first, it read as if there might be a thought hidden deep in that comment, but no matter how hard I shook it, nothing fell out.

yesssss THE NORD

I was interested to read this article on a Korean rapper — not on a Korean wrapper, but about a Korean rapper. This is a rapper who spews hate and lies against the United States. Typical stuff, the kind of thing you’ve heard your whole life. (At least I have.) According to the article, this guy “is slated to perform for President Obama for a Christmas in Washington special.” Sure.

I thought back to a rapper named Common. He sings, or raps, something called “A Song for Assata.” Who’s Assata? She started life as Joyce Chesimard, then changed her name to Assata Shakur. She’s one of those Radical Chic murderers — killed a New Jersey trooper named Werner Foerster. After a prison breakout, she fled to Cuba, where she’s under the protection of the Castros. American radicals — her fellow American radicals — make pilgrimages to her, to sit at her feet. They sing her praises throughout the world.

In Common’s song of praise, he sings, “All this sh** so we could be free, so dig it, y’all.” Yeah, dig it.

Last year, he was invited to perform at the White House. Law-enforcement agencies and other stuffed shirts objected, but who cares about the stuffed shirts? Who cares about Werner Foerster? Common did his thing, and Obama hugged him at the end.

main issue in 2016 is gonna be whether or not marco rubio will take a stand against common

From the same meandering nord-post:

A little more language? I have a story that illustrates one reason I find immigrants refreshing — they are free, for the moment, of our political correctness. Our Left hasn’t squeezed the life out of them yet.

I was in a new eatery called El Mitote. I said to this delightful girl behind the counter — she looked about 16 — “What does ‘el mitote’ mean?” She said, “You know how when ladies get together and talk about nothing?” She made hen-session motions with her hands. “Like that.”

America hasn’t gotten to her yet. It will. She’ll learn she can’t talk like that — “sexism” and all. But she hasn’t learned yet, and I love her for it.

A delightful girl, 16

that night she went home and tore down all her Common posters and put Nord up instead

a story that illustrates one reason I find immigrants refreshing

Perhaps he can find them refreshing here too:

Immigrants Founded Half Of Top U.S. Start-Up Companies: Study
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/immigrants-startups_n_1162590.html

Has America gotten to those immigrants?

the way to winning the latino vote in 20126 is through condescending laudatory corner posts

Not the Corner, but it is Jonah. Actually something I'm kinda surprised by here:

I've joked for years with my Indian American relatives and friends that they are the new Jews because their parents bury them in guilt and overeducate them.

The 'relatives' part caught me off-guard. In-laws, I guess.

The present day's incarnation of the everyman Right-winger really isn't complicated. Anybody who criticizes Conservative policy is, in their eyes, a braindead liberal. I read a review of godawful right-baiting Last Ounce of Courage the other night. It was a complete takedown, written by a decidedly conservative blog that preached family values and spirituality through Christianity, and objected to the demonization of the Populace with opposing thought, and how it substituted bigotry and intolerance for Christian values. Author even suggested another movie with similar topics (ie, 'war on christmas is RONG') that was a quality film, and lamented the lack of such films.

At least five conservatives replied that the author themselves was a bigoted tool of the "liberal media", apparently ignoring all of the Clear warning signs that the site nor author were liberal in the least. So, yeah, 'internet commenters are stupid, news at 11', but the funny thing is that this behavior is now present in conservative talking heads and friends as well. I may have Hated the neo-conservatives in Bush's era, but with my conservative friends, I felt like we could at least have a civil argument and agree to disagree at the end. Now, forget it.

i think--given the overwhelming amount of information that continually washes over us--ideological formations are gonna be increasingly fraught and unstable. the more our media diets are dispersed and the more "noise" that's out there the more that "conservatism" offers not just a political ideology but a kind of all-purpose filter for prevent the discomfort of doubt and confusion.

not that liberalism (or whatever) doesn't do the same--but it's the comprehensiveness of contemporary conservatism that strikes me as notable.

If the Law Were An Ass
By Jonah Goldberg
December 12, 2012 8:57 A.M. Comments 6

A man caught having sex with a miniature female donkey (at least it was female!), is arguing that he has a constitutional right to, er, drive the herd any way he wants. He is in effect arguing that if the law says he can’t roger a donkey, then the law is an ass — which is ironic, since if the law were an ass, he might want to have sex with it too.

His standup routines on the cruise must have been to die for.

take my mother, please!

"The reason this is funny..."

If his ear was a pussy...

he'd stuff cornbread in it.

He'd feed it cream and taunt it with yarn!

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/335288/steven-teless-really-important-essay-kludgeocracy-reihan-salam#

I actually think this would be a great thing for an 'honest' conservative movement to be built on

i need to read that. but one of my basic philosophical approaches to the world is that all of life is a kludge. ideology, culture, artforms, our bodies...

Reading the original essay right now, and Tales doesn't seem to be arguing for simplicity for simplicity's sake. It's pretty interesting.

http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Teles_Steven_Kludgeocracy_NAF_Dec2012.pdf

I think the greatest barrier to simplifying any program or set of programs is that the other side will get more out of the reform than yours does.

meant *fear* that the other side etc

I could see this as a possible policy space for a politician like christie over the next decade

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335464/worst-movie-girlfriends-jonah-goldberg

surely bill simmons has already written this column

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335464/worst-girlfriends-for-jonah-goldberg

Join Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Mark Steyn, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, and many more at the National Review Institute Conservative Summit, January 25-27, 2013, in Washington, D.C. Click here.

Thank you, no.

what Ned said, only with a fuckton of swearing

I notice Nordlinger never gets invited/attends.

He probably insisted one too many times on doing 'his favorite showtunes' in the past and was forcibly discouraged.

I get the sense that he's too fucking insane-in-a-creepy-dork way for most of them except as chum for commenters.

Join Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Mark Steyn, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, and many more for a ritual trepanation at the Airport Plaza, January 25-27, 2013, in Cleveland, OH. Click here.

xpost -- Every time he talks about dealing with a liberal colleague/student/etc. I get the sense he's in full Kenny Powers mode, first season.

congr@ts, m@x. let us know how the cruise goes, k?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335481/gawker-and-crowder-charles-c-w-cooke

I get the sense that he's too fucking insane-in-a-creepy-dork way for most of them except as chum for commenters.

His aggressive awkwardness comes across in his writing, I think even his colleagues probably want to keep away from him.

max u r a treat

Read’s contribution, “Do We Really Have to Condemn the Union Protestor Who Punched Fox News Comedian Steven Crowder?” also happens to be a most honest and vocal admission that the media don’t care a jot about political violence if it comes from the Left.

Read is contending that Crowder made a “bad decision” in going into the lion’s den. I’m certainly happy to accept that proposition, providing that progressives own that they’re conceding that the members of unions are lions.

max, you are now the official spokesman of the media, progressives & the Left. Congratulations!

I'm waiting for Nordlinger to issue a "Get in the Ring" style challenge to Max.

as long as it's the people's

Nordlinger might have different ideas about what the phrase means, Nicole.

yeah, he may actually mean a fight

No, he might mean "Get on my cock ring."

I would class it up with an american gladiator style challange

Jonah Goldberg ‏@JonahNRO

Setting out to castrate Justin Bieber is a bit like plotting to eradicate the DoDo bird.

If this is the case, instead of shouting banal and meretricious slogans such as “this is what democracy looks like,” progressives should be shouting “this is what anti-democratic, violent barbarism looks like. Argue with us and you’ll get hurt.”

afaict a punch in the face looks nearly as much like "democracy" as our current business as usual does. perhaps if he'd been kicked in the nuts it would look just like our democracy.

A punch to this guy's face is a blip on the radar compared to what's going to happen to Michigan workers under right-to-work. I haven't even been writing about what has been happening here this past week because it makes me too angry and depressed.

Why we should "stigmatize" single mothers.

Let's not forget: Judge Bork and martinis.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposium#

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

is "heave his bucket" a euphemism

men who played high school football: immune to bullets

In case of emergency:

1) Deploy bucket
2) Deploy any former defensive tackles
3) Deploy any fat kids

hink of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

omfg this shit is beyond the fucking pale

or pail i guess

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposium#

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. ... There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. ... A feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

Commenters: not having it.

xpost -- ah dammit too late

geez even the commenters have turned on'em

quick, throw jonah at them!

. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

unbelievable

wrong -- totally believable!

I wonder how many former high school football players are staffed at the national review

wesmorgan1 • 32 minutes ago

−

Unbelieveable...do you folks feel NO desire to get your facts straight?

1) Sandy Hook is a K-4 school, NOT a K-6 school. (I verified this in 30 seconds with one Google search to find the school's website.) So, your cringe-worthy "Oh, if only the burly 12-year-olds had rushed the shooter" nonsense is completely moot; there were no 12-year-olds, much less burly ones. (As an aside, I'm the father of a young man who was quite the burly 12-year-old, and I would NEVER teach him to rush a shooter - do you REALLY expect parents to teach their children to put themselves directly in the line of fire? Are you a parent, and do you teach YOUR kids to do this?)

2) Another 30-second look at the school directory (on its website) shows at least two named male employees; not all employees are listed in the directory. Unless you know for a fact that none of them were present when the shooting occurred, you're wrong - again.

So, right off the bat, one minute's worth of actual research--you know, that thing journalists are SUPPOSED to do?--takes 2/3 of your article into the trash. Moving on...

3) Even if "a few teachers who played high-school football" had been around, shouldn't their first priority be to get their students to whatever (relatively) safe place may be available? You seem to have the notion that the teacher should abandon the students to their own devices and rush the shooter. In most situations of this sort, there doesn't seem to be enough time to do both; so, your suggestion is a Catch-22 at best.

In short, you're blowing a LOT of hot air and contributing very little substance.

I wonder how many former high school football players are staffed at the national review

well now they can use Bork's carcass since I understand Ronnie's is starting to stink.

Hanson's father and uncle played college football at the College of the Pacific under Amos Alonzo Stagg.[3]

Male aggression can be a good thing

Perhaps you should rethink this line in this specific case.

I cannot get past the first page of this. I can't believe she seriously asked "why didn't the fat kids rush him?"

i believe mcmegan made the same argument in newsweek?

"Why wasn't K-Lo hired as a crossguard?"

NRO are journalistic trolls. I'm convinced the only purpose of their articles is to provide ILE with thread ideas.

if only that school had had a lot of Marky Marks and several Funky Bunches, then 911 never would have happened

Looks like her gender trolling was more successful than her shoulda-run-towards-the-armed-gunman trolling.

oh for those days when elementary schools were male dominated

I mean maybe if life were a side scroller video game, male onrushers could merely jump over the bullets, but for fuck's sake, the only people that says things like this writer are people who haven't ever experienced real violence before.

Wow, that's a stunning achievement in the field of hatefulness. Utterly sickening.

human wave attacks, the only answer

So basically, we could have won the war in Vietnam if we'd sent the Pittsburgh STeelers and not civilians?

Looks like her gender trolling was more successful than her shoulda-run-towards-the-armed-gunman trolling.

Her suggestion that Lanza would have been fine if his mother had kicked him out of the house was pretty good trolling too, surprised the commenters haven't picked up on it.

IF I HAD BEEN THERE
by
Keith Delwin, age 12
Lakeshire Raiders, DT

grim lol

"reading specialist"

Twenty children and six adults are dead. In Nigeria, people put their lives at risk going to church on Sundays. But in New England? The thought that going to school could be a final act is hard for us to comprehend. The seeming senselessness of what happened in Connecticut on Friday is not something we easily process. As the media and political class rush to legislative answers, we ask what is a healthy response to what has happened.

Our first respondent, Charlotte Allen, gives an excellent example of an unhealthy response.

Charlotte Allen is author of The Human Christ.

of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

Better gender death parity?

A good blow to middle-aged ex high school football players? This is the most pathetic grasping-at-straws argument I've heard in a while.

Don't they remember that guns make men equal? You may not be the best swordsman in the world but you can kill almost anybody with your gun. "God created men, but Sam Colt made'em equal." They can't even get their puerile, romantic and deeply-in-denial catechism of American cultural exceptionalism straight.

Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel.

What she's really going after here is all the anti-bullying stuff. Which, parsed a bit, amounts to saying, "Now that our 12-year-olds can't call people faggot anymore, they're too soft to take down one guy with an assault rifle."

How about we put some Israeli ladies with Uzis in our schools, would that suit their perverted fantasies, and by fantasies, I mean their repeated refusal to deal with empirical fact when comforting fairy tales that require no intorspection or, God forefend, self-criticism are ready at hand.

What she's really going after here is all the anti-bullying stuff.

Yet, again American culture is described (even normatively) as a place where transcendence, nobility of spirit (even hardline Protestants seem to eschew this in their religiosity), and community are seen as weakness and weakness is always alterity; gay, female, European, lettuce eating, whatever knuckle-dragging delusione they adhere to, and yet thet freest 'men' in the world haven't the balls to buck their own culture or upbringing. Risible.

feel like 'fuck you, charlotte allen' is the only decent human response to that

oh for the human christ's sake

Metzae • an hour ago

"There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred."

Wrong. His name was Adam Lanza.

^^ damn dude

ouch

@jsousa1213: You know who else thought it was a good idea to train 12 year old boys to provide security?

I'm wondering how this matches with the Abstinence-only crowd. I imagine there's a bigger overlap between people that think kids should be taught how to shoot guns and kids should be taught only abstinence.

Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers.

Clearly removing violence from movies and videogames would only serve to make the populace more feminine, tho?

great times on the corner

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/336124/re-degrees-difficulty-jay-nordlinger

"My wife and I have a daughter — she’ll be five in February — and we are devastated about the Newtown murders. We can’t imagine what the parents are going through. I believe the answer is to have both uniformed and plain-clothes armed personnel at the schools. Might as well have them at shopping malls too."

i think we should pay to have an armed plain-clothes mall cop live in his house and follow his daughter around, just in case someone breaks in.

wow this article has introduced a lot of my facebook friends to the "joys" of the NRO

every article on the corner today is insane, this is really bringing out all of their pathology