Herman Cain for President: the real deal?
Not all pro-lifers fit the profile you’ve probably been given.
Traitor Bradely Manning has gripes about the room service in the brig. Boo freaking hoo.
Michelle Malkin takes on the ACLU for taking on Catholic hospitals.
John Bolton explains how to deal with China; American Power has the video.
Cuban healthcare’s not so bad…PBS says so!
My latest NewsRealBlog post:
Attempting to paint one political opponent as undermining another is an especially tempting line of political attack, sometimes so tempting that a propagandist will settle for the most contorted, threadbare argument to that effect. Such is the case with Media Matters’ latest attack on Sean Hannity. Seizing upon Hannity’s latest interview with GOP Congressman Steve King about Congress’ current tax bickering, Media Matters claims to have caught Hannity admitting that the Bush tax cuts were “madness”:
Speaking with Rep. Steve King about the estate tax, Hannity made the following complaint:
HANNITY: If you died last year it was 45 percent, if you die this year it’s zero percent, if you die next year, it could be 55 percent: Only Washington could think of this madness.
That’s so true. Only in Washington could such a crazy plan be hatched. Only in the Bush White House, to be specific. Bush, and a Republican led Congress chose to have the Bush tax cuts “sunset” on the last day of 2010, largely because Republicans neglected to propose any way to pay for the hugely expensive cuts, and letting them expire after nine years mitigated the enormous price-tag that accompanied these cuts (because price estimates are calculated over a 10-year period).
First, our leftist friends apparently hope none of their readers will stop to think about what a sunset provision is. Sunset provisions set a date by which a measure will expire, unless it’s reauthorized. Note well the last part: politicians know when something is going to happen well in advance, and have to act to decide whether or not to do anything about it.
Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.
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People like Farah and Sprigg make a lot of noise, and everyone outside the audience of the mainstream conservative media hear this noise and make much of it. Do they make too much? That is quite possible. But besides Freiburger and a few like him, how many on the Right are stepping forward to set the record straight?
When conservatives are standing up for gays, and Democrats treat us like we are an embarrassment, there’s a problem.
Not only the hard Left, but also much of the political middle believes that social conservatives are dangerous. This is exactly why the Tea Party movement deemphasized social issues in the first place, and it is also why it has enjoyed so much success.
In his Great American Panel segment Friday night (12/3/10), one of many discussions in which Hannity whined about the unfair tax burden on the rich, Hannity asked, “So does the issue of class warfare… does this work, is this a winner for the Democrats?”
Frank Donatelli, GOPAC chairman, said no, but that it would “mobilize the liberal base… It just drives them crazy… They’re demanding tax increases on the most productive citizens.”
Of course, Hannity did not consider THAT class warfare.
Yesterday I objected to my NRB colleague Lori Heine’s criticism of social conservatives as “statist control freaks.” At her blog, she has some more remarks on the subject. She mention’s she’s got a NRB rebuttal to my piece waiting in the wings, so I’ll hold off responding for now. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Here’s Lori’s NRB reply. I’ve penned an upcoming response which entails some of the themes she touches on at her blog, so I’ll use this space to comment on something else she said yesterday:
First of all, I will again explain my take on social conservatism in general. According to my understanding, it can really only be said to mean one of two things. Either it concerns itself with politics — which is to say, with the workings of government — or it is the self-definition of swelled-headed narcissists who fancy themselves more moral, or more pious than anybody else (usually without any substantial evidence to back it up). NRB’s editors take issue with lumping all social conservatives together as big-government meddlers, and perhaps they are right. But I have not yet heard a better definition than the two that I have given.
Er, what? I’m not sure just what the first option’s supposed to be referring to, and the second – “the self-definition of swelled-headed narcissists who fancy themselves more moral, or more pious than anybody else (usually without any substantial evidence to back it up)” – is an egregiously insulting mischaracterization that’s hard to take seriously. Speaking of a definition “without any substantial evidence to back it up”…
Social conservatism actually isn’t all that hard to define. I’d argue that it’s simply the recognition that a self-governing society cannot be sustained without certain moral principles and institutions, and that while, to use Vindicating the Founders author Thomas West’s phraseology, government can’t “by itself produce the passions and convictions” America needs, it can “weigh in on the side of them” in certain ways, within the confines of the Constitution and consistent with natural liberty.
America’s Founding Fathers certainly didn’t believe that protecting natural rights and maintaining basic infrastructure were government’s only proper functions: George Washington tells us that morality, one of the “firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens,” is an “indispensable support” to political prosperity. John Adams writes that policy should “regulate” human passions, because it is “of the highest importance” that they be “arranged on the side of virtue.” Charles Rowley of George Mason University writes that for James Madison, “a republican order must have a moral content, a cluster of values, without which it would lose its meaning.” Even the Founders we consider relatively secular agree—Thomas Jefferson fears what might become of nations which fail to admit “a chapter of morality in their political code,” while Benjamin Franklin hopes the nation’s “virtues public and private grow with us, and be durable,” because “only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”
Also, It’s a little surprising to see myself referred to as a “doe-eyed innocent”; that’s certainly not what a lot of other people would call me…
UPDATE 2: Here’s my NRB response.
Of course it’s all predicated on their belief that the public has a “right” to know everything which the government says or does; coupled with the assertion that no statement is exempt from the free speech protections embodied in the First Amendment. It’s about “trust”, as in the libertarians have absolutely no trust in the elected government.Welcome to the promise of a world governed by a cross between the pre-imperial Roman Senate and a typical New England town meeting. It’s one step above organized chaos, predicated on the notion that everyone is equally capable of governing himself.And here I thought that only progressives dreamed of utopia […]One could say the same about my libertarian interlocutors. They seek to destroy authority, and replace it with, well exactly what I’m not sure. It’s some sort of idealized leave-me-the-hell-alone universe where a subset of the Articles of Confederation are in effect and a never-ending supply of Founding Fathers (or a clone army comprised of Murray Rothbards and Friedrich Hayeks) stands at the ready to prevent deviation from The Path.That in a nutshell is my beef with strong-form libertarianism. I believe in the Constitution, so much so that I an willing to work within its framework to effect the changes we so desparately need. The power of the ballot box should not be underestimated. In addition America has a long and noble history of peaceful protest, the massing of public opinion in a focused attempt to make our voices heard. We are America, hear us roar!
The “prophetic” words were those of Russell Kirk, the undisputed godfather of the conservative movement who said “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace comes to pass in an era of Righteousness — that is, national or ideological self-righteousness in which the public is persuaded that ‘God is on our side,’ and that those who disagree should be brought here before the bar as war criminals.”The quote that followed about Assange was not written by Lew Rockwell, but by retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski.
Jonah Goldberg doesn’t like the TSA’s new security measures (neither do I), but he thinks some of the outrage over them is disproportionate and misdirected:
I’d bet that the vast majority of TSA employees do not want to touch your junk — or mine. And if any TSA agent gives the slightest indication that junk-touching is his or her favorite part of the job, he or she should be fired immediately.
Obviously, the first people to blame for this mess are the murderers. Without them, flying wouldn’t be the soul-killing experience it is.
Yesterday, he objected to an example of that outrage from our old pal, John Guardiano, who summaries the matter as a dispute between “liberty-loving” conservatives who “see the TSA as it really is” and “authority-loving” conservatives who “see the TSA as they want it to be”:
And that’s really what rankles: the glib assertion of bad faith. How does he know his policy opponents are ensorceled by their love of authority? Wait five minutes for the next controversy to erupt and many of Guardiano’s liberty lovers may well be on the side of authority and some of the authority lovers will be on the side of liberty.
Fundamentally, Guardiano’s argument is indistinguishable from Obama’s claims that his opponents blindly cling to their bigotry and religion and that liberals are on the side of facts and logic and reason. Only this time the blinkered ideologues are “authority-loving cons” and the intrepid empircists are “liberty loving cons.”
Why can’t Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen (colleagues of mine at the American Enterprise Institute for the record) simply be weighing the costs and benefits differently? Why can’t they have concluded such measures are the best way to defend liberty? How does Guardiano know what’s in their hearts?
Today, the American Spectator’s biggest hiring mistake responds with his trademark arrogance:
I’m sorry, Jonah, but if the shoe fits — and it surely does in this case — wear it!
I don’t know if Jonah intends to respond or not. On the one hand, it’s always enjoyable to see somebody like Guardiano slapped down by a more principled conservative. On the other hand, it’s probably not worth Goldberg’s time – Guardiano is, after all, a lap dog for one of the most dishonorable character assassins to ever call himself a “conservative,” and he’s already on the record having lied about one of Goldberg’s National Review colleagues, Andy McCarthy.
My latest NewsRealBlog post:
The Christmas season just wouldn’t be Christmas these days without government-sponsored desecration of images sacred to most Americans. By now you’ve probably heard about the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s charming new exhibit depicting, among other things, a bloody Jesus Christ covered in ants. That part of the exhibit has been removed, but it still features “male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show’s catalog as ‘homoerotic.’”
True to form, Media Matters is trying to defuse outrage over the controversy by repeatedly pointing out that while the Smithsonian may receive taxpayer dollars, this particular exhibit was funded privately. Here they highlight last night’s exchange between Sean Hannity and Democrat strategist Joe Trippi, who “tries to get Hannity to understand” that simple distinction:
http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf
TRIPPI: The money for this exhibit was all private foundations.
HANNITY: But I don’t agree with that analysis. It’s like saying, we fund the ability for them to open their doors every day. So they don’t get to open the door, except for the American taxpayer.
TRIPPI: The American taxpayer paid for the building and those kinds of things, but it’s an art museum, I mean – and this particular art exhibit is the influence of gay and lesbian artists on portraiture.
HANNITY: Fine. If they wanna have an art museum with this stuff, we shouldn’t pay to open their doors so they can put this type of stuff in there!
Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of Suzanne Venker’s 3-part NewsReal series on why marriage matters.
You’ve gotta be kidding me: someone’s turning Maureen Dowd into a sexed-up action heroine in a new comic book? It’s so absurd that it would be hilarious…if not for the fact that the plot is yet another way in which entertainment outlets are injecting a false narrative of the Valerie Plame saga into the national consciousness. Historical revisionism is no laughing matter.
First Geraldo Rivera revealed how “open-minded” he was about what “really” happened on 9/11, and now losertarian Judge Andrew Napolitano has joined the Truther brigade. It’s way past time for Fox News to can both these clowns.
Comedy great Leslie Nielsen, dead at 84. I plan to take some time this weekend to watch Airplane! in his memory; I’d encourage all of you to do the same.
Donald Douglas slaps around a richly-deserving losertarian blogger.
Neil reminds us that ethanol is a dud.
And this Thanksgiving, I’m really, really thankful for a little wonder-virus called Stuxnet.
Last month, I wrote a NewsRealBlog post summarizing the case against Ron Paul. A Paul disciple named Wesley Messamore attempted to refute it at the Young Americans for Liberty blog. I responded in another NRB post, demonstrating that Wesley’s screed consisted almost entirely of dishonesty, misdirection, and simply ignoring information that was too inconvenient.
I’m a little jammed up presently with the election (timed perfectly to coincide with some other heavy lifting I’m doing for my non-political, commercial enterprises)… give me some time and I’ll respond. Or if you’re up for it, I propose we set up a debate to stream live.
Conservative Standards 