Not Knowing What They're Doing
Justin Katz
It's becoming unremarkable to remark upon the lack of substance in the latest round of Obama endorsements. Saying he'll bring "change" or be "transformative" means little. As Thomas Sowell points out, recent pages of history have their share of stories about transformation toward something worse. Of course, as Sowell notes elsewhere, a con man's "job is not to convince skeptics but to enable the gullible to continue to believe what they want to believe." In that capacity, Obama is certainly a uniter.
Mark Steyn follows up on Sowell's comments thus:
McCain vs Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it's not an "ideal world", and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will "heal the planet" and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux. I agree with Thomas Sowell that an Obama-Pelosi supermajority will mark what he calls "a point of no return". It would not be, as some naysayers scoff, "Jimmy Carter's second term", but something far more transformative. The new president would front the fourth great wave of liberal annexation — the first being FDR's New Deal, the second LBJ's Great Society, and the third the incremental but remorseless cultural advance when Reagan conservatives began winning victories at the ballot box and liberals turned their attention to the other levers of the society, from grade school up. The terrorist educator William Ayers, Obama's patron in Chicago, is an exemplar of the last model: forty years ago, he was in favor of blowing up public buildings; then he figured out it was easier to get inside and undermine them from within.
All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can't the government sort out my health care? Why can't they pick up my mortgage?
Steyn goes on to make a point that I've sounded before, in conversation and writing, and never heard so much as an attempt at a defensible reply:
More to the point, the only reason why Belgium has gotten away with being Belgium and Sweden Sweden and Germany Germany this long is because America's America. The soft comfortable cocoon in which western Europe has dozed this last half-century is girded by cold hard American power. What happens when the last serious western nation votes for the same soothing beguiling siren song as its enervated allies?
Sowell counts the Soviet Union among the historical transformations toward something worse, and one can imagine a similar trajectory for the United States. One can imagine many things, of course, and if we recall the ideological parity that the last few election cycles have proven to exist between right and left, it's clear that the path from here to there would necessarily be a bloody one — so much so as to be surpassingly unlikely. However, even just the loss of the United States as an exemplar of stalwart individualism would be an unprecedented shift in the world stage.
Optimist that I am, I'll predict — in the face of the mantric conventional wisdom — that an Obama presidency would be the last gasp of liberalism. When the hidden supports of Belgian Belgium et al. cease to exist, so will the illusion of many cherished policies of the left. Either the wishfully thinking conservatives who've admitted a fondness for him will luck out and Obama will discover the necessity of governing from the right, or the liberal government in the United States will be such a globally abysmal failure that the world will be forced to give up the fantasy.
You may express doubt about Obama; possibility of being elected president and what he might do in office however; there is a VP candidate that would stand inline to become the President of the United States that is beginning to show true colors.
“Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says
From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King CNN
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.”
Full article can be found at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html
Justin,
This post is very timely. I believe you will see the greatest expansion of liberalism into mainstrean American politics since LBJ should Obama get elected.
I suspect many of the more liberal justices will retire from the Supreme Court during an Obama first term.
There is no question that we're going to see tax increases and a softening of our foreign policy abroad that may only cause further conflict down the road.
I do believe that Americans will eventually wake up and return to their senses, but significant damage will have been done through a government with no checks and balances.
Gee, Ken, I guess concerns about a vice presidential candidate (based on anonymous sources to a hostile press) really should outweight concerns about the opposing presidential candidate.
Can you believe she called robocalls "irritating"? Man. Keep that woman away from the White House! I want my phone a-ringing with Obama's brownshirt reminders.
Ken
CNN? Would that be the same CNN that fed us horseshit from Saddam's Baghdad? The same one that employed a senior executive who claimed that American soldiers targeted journalists in Iraq? The same one that like the rest of the lame stream media ignores the very real issues concerning BO's affiliations and beliefs in favor of unsourced tittle-tattle about his opponent's VP candidate?
Nah, never heard of them. At least never bother hearing them anymore as they have no credibility.
"Optimist that I am, I'll predict — in the face of the mantric conventional wisdom — that an Obama presidency would be the last gasp of liberalism. When the hidden supports of Belgian Belgium et al. cease to exist, so will the illusion of many cherished policies of the left. Either the wishfully thinking conservatives who've admitted a fondness for him will luck out and Obama will discover the necessity of governing from the right, or the liberal government in the United States will be such a globally abysmal failure that the world will be forced to give up the fantasy."
Actually, the European continent, from Russia to France and Italy HAS given up on leftism. According to the polls England will soon follow.
The countries you mention-Sweden, Belgium and Germany-are all under right-wing, anti-immigrant governments. And no they DO NOT give citizenship to the babies of any Third World maggot who sneeks into the country.
"Can you believe she called robocalls "irritating"? Man. Keep that woman away from the White House! I want my phone a-ringing with Obama's brownshirt reminders."
lol
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You may express doubt about Obama; possibility of being elected president and what he might do in office however; there is a VP candidate that would stand inline to become the President of the United States that is beginning to show true colors.
“Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says
From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King CNN
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.”
Full article can be found at:
Posted by: Ken at October 26, 2008 2:30 AMhttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html
Justin,
This post is very timely. I believe you will see the greatest expansion of liberalism into mainstrean American politics since LBJ should Obama get elected.
I suspect many of the more liberal justices will retire from the Supreme Court during an Obama first term.
There is no question that we're going to see tax increases and a softening of our foreign policy abroad that may only cause further conflict down the road.
I do believe that Americans will eventually wake up and return to their senses, but significant damage will have been done through a government with no checks and balances.
Posted by: Anthony at October 26, 2008 3:02 AMGee, Ken, I guess concerns about a vice presidential candidate (based on anonymous sources to a hostile press) really should outweight concerns about the opposing presidential candidate.
Can you believe she called robocalls "irritating"? Man. Keep that woman away from the White House! I want my phone a-ringing with Obama's brownshirt reminders.
Posted by: Justin Katz at October 26, 2008 7:40 AMKen
CNN? Would that be the same CNN that fed us horseshit from Saddam's Baghdad? The same one that employed a senior executive who claimed that American soldiers targeted journalists in Iraq? The same one that like the rest of the lame stream media ignores the very real issues concerning BO's affiliations and beliefs in favor of unsourced tittle-tattle about his opponent's VP candidate?
Nah, never heard of them. At least never bother hearing them anymore as they have no credibility.
Posted by: chuckR at October 26, 2008 9:51 AM"Optimist that I am, I'll predict — in the face of the mantric conventional wisdom — that an Obama presidency would be the last gasp of liberalism. When the hidden supports of Belgian Belgium et al. cease to exist, so will the illusion of many cherished policies of the left. Either the wishfully thinking conservatives who've admitted a fondness for him will luck out and Obama will discover the necessity of governing from the right, or the liberal government in the United States will be such a globally abysmal failure that the world will be forced to give up the fantasy."
Actually, the European continent, from Russia to France and Italy HAS given up on leftism. According to the polls England will soon follow.
Posted by: Mike at October 26, 2008 11:31 AMThe countries you mention-Sweden, Belgium and Germany-are all under right-wing, anti-immigrant governments. And no they DO NOT give citizenship to the babies of any Third World maggot who sneeks into the country.
"Can you believe she called robocalls "irritating"? Man. Keep that woman away from the White House! I want my phone a-ringing with Obama's brownshirt reminders."
lol
Posted by: Monique at October 26, 2008 1:22 PM