I can think of few people more deserving of Christopher Hitchen's vitriolic wrath than Gore Vidal. Once a talented writer, the latter has clearly degenerated into a tawdry peddler of ridiculous crackpot conspiracy claims.
...in an article headlined "Vidal Loco", Hitchens launches a stinging attack on Vidal, claiming that the events of 9/11 "accentuated a crackpot strain" in the author. He claims that Vidal's work after the terrorist attacks consists of "a small anthology of half-argued and half-written shock pieces [which] either insinuated or asserted that the administration had known in advance of the attacks."
"He openly says that the Bush administration was 'probably' in on the 9/11 attacks, a criminal complicity that would 'certainly fit them to a T'; that Timothy McVeigh was 'a noble boy', no more murderous than generals Patton and Eisenhower; and that 'Roosevelt saw to it that we got that war' by inciting the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor," Hitchens writes.
Now that Hitchens has called him on his bullshit, Vidal is predictably being defended by nihilistic professors of the Edward Said school:
yesterday, a British academic, who was also criticised by Hitchens, leapt to the author's defence. Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, of Sussex University, described Hitchens' attack as "extraordinarily vitriolic". He claimed there was a "sense of jealousy he never did quite get to Gore's level of literary flair and his almost iconic status. It does seem like a kind of bizarre personal vendetta being carried out on the pages of Vanity Fair, replete with factual inaccuracies and not very much substance."
Dr Ahmed, director of the London-based think tank the Institute for Policy Research and Development, claimed Hitchens failed to contextualise Vidal's comments.
"Hitchens has taken them very literally and Gore is being much more playful and much more provocative," Dr Ahmed said.
Vidal was not trying to absolve the Oklahoma City bomber, McVeigh, he added, but to make people think critically.
As Hitchens points out here, Professor Ahmed is the author of conspiracy tracts which maintain that "the attacks on New York and Washington were part of a pre-arrangement involving the United States government." His theses were thoroughly debunked, but naturally that has not stopped his nihilistic crusade.
I admire Hitchens for having the balls, the patience, and the intellectual rigor to go after these people, because otherwise their ideas spread like unchecked viruses. Somebody has to do what Hitchens is doing, and too often those who could and should don't or won't.
No wonder he drinks to excess. Who wouldn't?
I'd say thank God for Christopher Hitchens, but I won't, because he might take it the wrong way. Perhaps I should just toast him later.
:: Comments left behind ::
Yes, Danke Dieu for Mr. Hitchens. I don't agree with about 80% of his opinions but he deserves fierce admiration for being willing to LOOK and to debate...even when doing so causes him to have to say "goodbye to all that." In other words, I'd love to have a diet coke and bourbon with him and talk of commas and kings and many other things.
:: RigelDog February 8, 2010 02:49 PM
I'm with RigelDog, I don't agree with HItchens about 80% of the time (probably a different 80% though), but I have to respect the guy.
Anthony Watts has a great article up on how he changed out a fixture that used a CFL Flood Lamp to one using an LED lamp. Anthony bought 5 LED fixtures and got a deal. He paid $80.00 each for them. So let us run some numbers.
In 50,000 hours you save 150,000 Wh or 150KWh with the LED fixture. The LED fixture costs $48.75 more than 5 CFLs . If your electricity costs less than 32.5¢ a KWh The CFLs are a better deal.
On new construction or when replacing a fixture the cost of the fixture enters the picture. Don't forget to figure out what it is worth in time and hassle changing bulbs more often vs installing a fixture. Another point is that you can dim the LEDs and the CFLs do not dim. Dimming the LEDs should add to their life since ordinary LED lifetime is roughly proportional to current. Not only that: light output per watt goes up at lower currents.
My advice to cheapskates? At 10¢ a KWh wait until you can buy one for $45 or less. A couple of CFLs should see you through.
Those are the economic issues - roughly. As Anthony points out there are other considerations. And thank you Antony for being an early adopter. It will help bring the price down to one I can afford.
The light quality is not, ahh, fungible. I have a lot of wall washing indirect valence lighting that is 3500k 4 ft standard fluorescent. But for direct lighting anywhere near food - preparation or dining areas - make mine anything but CFL. A lot of CFL lighting has lousy light quality.
I'll wait a bit on LEDs - I certainly like the idea of once in a lifetime installation.
:: chuckR February 8, 2010 09:27 AM
Since all CFLs are made in china, I have a large stockpile of standard bulbs that are not made there to use for a nice long time.
:: RT February 8, 2010 10:01 AM
Another aspect of CFLs that is not often considered but should be is how long one leaves the lights on and how frequently they are turned on and off.
Turning a CFL on and off with a frequency of more than once or twice a day degrades the lifespan significantly. This is because the ballast wears out a little, from heating and then cooling, every time you turn the light on and then off. Also, the the ballast requires a significant surge every time you turn on a CFL. The package might say 7 watts but the ballast can pull over a hundred and up to three hundred watts for up to a minute after you flick the light on. Thus, if you flick the light on for five minutes you pull about a hundred to three hundred watts for one minute and then seven watts for about four minutes plus you are wearing out the ballast. That doesn't always make sense vis a vis an incandescent.
In terms of energy usage and total dollar cost, my experience is that CFL's make sense only where the lights are turned on once or maybe twice a day and left on for more than hour.
:: Jardinero1 February 8, 2010 11:03 AM
@Jardinero1 - I don't know where you got those figures, but my testing, and Mythbusters' testing shows that the startup surge for pretty much anything but arc lamps is negligible. Startup surge for most lamps is a few milliseconds of run time. And the better quality lights don't have the high failure rate with cycling that the 69 cent specials do.
@Simon - Where the hell are you getting electricity for 10 cents/kWh? Here in CT it's closer to 22 cents.
Does anybody know how much UV light a CFL puts out and how that amount would compare to being in the sun.
:: harleycowboy February 8, 2010 12:07 PM
I liked this part the best:
"The neatest trick with these lights is that they combine yellow and white LED’s in a matrix to get a color temperature that is 2700K or 3500K (your choice) which makes them give similar light to incandescents."
I've avoided ceiling cans because of the inherent problems with fire-blocking, attic-insulation, heat-output (used to have one above my sink, burned my bald-spot when washing dishes...), and the lack of low-energy options -- compact flourescent replacement lamps always have a short lifespan when used "base up". But my very-low-ceilinged house needs some sort of light and wall-sconces haven't been ideal in the kitchen.
So yes, $80 is a lot for a light bulb, but in my current bathroom and kitchen renovation it might not be a lot for a new fixture that will work and lack any maintenance for 15 years.
:: douglas2 February 8, 2010 12:46 PM
Brian, Mythbusters is a tv show. Get yourself a watt meter from Edmund Scientifics and try it yourself. Also, it is a fact that frequent heating and cooling of the ballast wears the ballast out.
:: Jardinero1 February 8, 2010 01:42 PM
It is a matter of priorities. Some people can spend an extra $500 for a weekend project and never miss the money.
Others may think it is expensive but enjoy activities like this. So they skip a couple of NFL games and buy the LEDs.
I have a few LEDs around the homestead. And I was about to buy dimmable CFLs for the kitchen when I noticed the package said they should be kept on for 15 minutes at a time in order to get the bulb life rating.
Forget that 15 minute BS. My experience with CFLs has not been that great anyway. They fail a lot, or did about 2 years ago. Better quality control may have reduced that problem
Wait. In a couple more years you will be able to get LEDs bulbs in a wider variety of shapes. There will be no need to install new fixtures as Anthony did. And they will cost much less too.
:: KTWO February 8, 2010 01:45 PM
Sunday, February 7, 2010
"the Pol Pot of noodledom" (10:16 PM)
In a fit of homesickness, earlier I was thinking about surly service in favorite decrepit Chinese restaurants I have known over the years. (For some reason the two tend to go hand in hand.) In Berkeley, some of my fondest drunken memories involved Robbie's Chinese American Hofbrau, which used to be on Telegraph Avenue. The place had been there since the 1950s, and old wooden table tops in the booths were covered with carved writings, including (so I was told by elder Bohemians who "knew" about such things) stuff that had actually been carved by Allen Ginsberg back in the days before he was allegedly running around with Michael Savage. The problem was, everyone carved stuff in there, and there was no way to distinguish what Allen Ginsberg might have carved from what decades of drunken frat boys might have carved. (That sort of indistinguishability I'm sure Ginsberg would have approved.) Beer flowed, and the food was your basic Chow Mein, egg foo young, sweet sour pork fare. One day in the mid 1970s, Robbie was gone, and when I asked where he was, the other Chinese guys laughed and said, "He get too old!" Not long after that, the place closed and was abruptly sacked, the tables violently ripped out and piled in the middle, and when I went in demanding to know what was happening, a Mideastern cheapskate type who appeared to be now in charge looked at me and with what seemed like a gloating expression on his face, said "Robbies is closed. Permanently." History was gone with the wind. I never forgot it.
Then there was the Wong Star, on Haight Street in San Francisco. A few words in a passing blog post cannot hope to do justice to either the place, or its proprietor, a stout, energetic, and probably manic woman known to everyone simply as "Kim." Kim ruled. Over the greasiest dive this side of South Brunswick, New Jersey. The prices were out of the 1950s, as was Kim. Normal people would have been scared away by the shocking tackiness of the decor. I doubt the front windows had been washed since 1952, but this might have been a good thing, actually. For while you could read where "WONG STAR RESTAURANT" had been painted, the window dirt obscured the window "display" -- which was nothing but a long, bent curtain rod over which was hung plastic greasy yellow shower curtains. And between the shower curtains and the window was a vase holding plastic flowers so covered with grime and dust you really couldn't tell what color they might have been. It was wonderful.
Kim was the ultimate tyrant, and brooked no attitude. And I mean, no attitude, for Kim feared no man. (And no woman.) I'll never forget the time that some jive-ass pimp type (a man quite accustomed to getting his way) came in and ordered food to go. While he waited, he and one of his girls carried on loudly, and when the food was brought out, the bags were stapled shut with the receipt on top, per Kim's usual practice. The man paid, but suddenly decided that now he wasn't going to leave, and instead he sat insolently down and started opening up the food to eat it.
Instantly Kim launched into action.
"YOU ORD' TO GO NOT EAT HERE!" she shrieked, while literally lunging at the man. Realizing that he was out-gunned psychologically and probably physically, the guy got up and left, defensively muttering things like "crazy bitch, what she talking bout?" under his breath.
At this point, Kim turned to the entire restaurant and announced something I will never forget as long as I live --
"I ONLY LIKE NICE PEOPLE!"
Everyone got it. There was just an understanding there. Kim was so brutally right and so politically incorrect in the most innocent and charming sort of way....
The food was actually quite good, and there was no other place I had seen (least of all in San Francisco) where you could get a decent steak and egg breakfast for $2.95 in the 1980s.
Where I really scored was with another favorite -- San Francisco's Sam Wo Restaurant. The place used to be (and amazingly, still is) the most inexpensive restaurant in Chinatown, and you had to walk up a skinny flight of not-to-code stairs and then through a dingy kitchen, where you would be greeted by a man who really took delight in being insane. I used to love going there just to watch his behavior. He would yell at you as soon as you got to the top of the stairs, specks of foam flying from his mouth, tell you where to sit and what to order. He was something of a San Francisco legend (who had regular mentions in Herb Caen's column -- especially when he would chase non-paying customers into the street waving a cleaver) and I figured he must be dead by now and long forgotten. But I was very encouraged when I Googled "Sam Wo" and found that not only is the place still there, but there are many reviews, mostly favorable, and one mentioned a crazy waitress who no longer works there:
sorry to break it to you guys, but the non-english speaking waitress who loves to throw chopsticks and what not at you has retired!!! Apparently the owner's daughter (who by the way, speaks English and is way awesome) has taken over her job duties. So customer service has definitely stepped up a notch.
That made me sad, because there is a part of me that would love nothing more than to be yelled at by a crazy Chinese waitress in San Francisco. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.
But what I really remembered about Sam Wo was the man who took delight in being insane -- a truly immortal San Francisco character with the unforgettable name of "Edsel Ford Fong." When I saw that the place still existed, I thought maybe there'd be a mention of him somewhere, so I did what modern people do. I Googled him.
To by utter astonishment, not only did I get hits, but the man (who died in 1984) has his own Wiki page. A Wiki page! The last thing on earth I would have expected. In all these years of blogging, never have I been more surprised to discover the existence of a Wiki page, yet no one is more deserving of a Wiki page than Edsel Ford Fong.
Edsel Ford Fong (May 6, 1927 - April 1984) was a Chinese American restaurant server from San Francisco, California. [1] He was often called the "world's rudest, worst, most insulting waiter".[2]
That's my guy! What I would give to be waited on by him once more. We just don't appreciate these things while we have them. Anyway, many a writer and artist remembers him, and they were so charmed by him that he was immortalized, as evidenced by the heavily-footnoted Wiki piece:
Edsel Ford Fong was born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown. He worked the second floor of the Sam Wo Restaurant on Washington Street. (The restaurant name means "three in peace", a reference to its founding partners.)[3] As head waiter, Fong greeted visitors with an admonition to "sit down and shut up".[4] He was known for calling patrons "retarded" and "fat", criticizing people's menu choices before telling them what they should order, slamming food on the table, complaining about receiving only 15% tips, and groping female patrons.[2] An imposing man with a crew cut hair style, he also was notorious for seating people with strangers, forgetting orders, cursing, spilling soup on customers, hazing newcomers, refusing to provide forks or English menu translations, and busing tables before diners were finished.[5]
What's not to love about that? You were lucky he even let you in, and you had to eat fast, because there was no better deal in town. Even today, dinner for four can be had for $12.00:
I have to agree with all the other yelpers and say that if you want a clean, rated-A Chinese restaurant, then don't come here!!! Entering through the dirty kitchen and seeing random poultry parts everywhere might be enough to make anyone turn in their tracks... and yes, I was rather grossed out, HOWEVER the food is scrumptious. The service isnt too fabulous or attentive by any means, but I was rather disappointed to not hear any yelling or screaming or see any chopsticks thrown.
All the tables are pretty small, so the four of us smushed in the back corner. We ordered a bowl of bbq pork noodles, and a plate of chow mein with beef and sprouts. The bowl of soup was huge, definitely enough for the four of us to share. Very tasty on a cold, rainy day. The chow mein was nice and greasy, and I had to add some soy sauce to give it some more flavor, but it was also very tasty. The bill came out to something like $12, which you can't go wrong with!! Cash only though, so be prepared.
In the old days of Edsel Ford Fong, woe be anyone who had not been prepared or had tried to pay by credit card. (Meat cleaver time!)
The Wiki piece recognizes that the man's style was an art form:
Sam Wo Restaurant continues to operate (as of 2009) in Chinatown, and is still listed in tourist guidebooks as being where Fong practiced a "wicked sarcasm [that] took on aspects of performance art".[12]
A Chinatown institution for over 100 years, Sam Wo's is a ramshackle speakeasy of a restaurant where you are more likely to get yelled at and berated rather than unctuously served. As you walk directly into the kitchen, a waiter yells at you, already exasperated, to come up the rickety stairs to the meager dining area. Saw Wo's was the home of the legendary Edsel Ford Fong until he passed away recently--this surly, rude "waiter" would treat you like a recruit at his own private Chinese restaurant boot camp. The tradition continues: you are most likely told what to eat, instead of choosing the food yourself--but its eternal redeeming quality is the fact that Sam Wo's is some cheap, cheap eats.
Oddly enough, I didn't find him to be rude, but hilariously camp. He enjoyed being an entertainer, and rudeness was not the point, really. From a piece quoted in Wiki:
"But it was a despotic head waiter known as Edsel Ford Fong that made SAM WOH such a formidable Babylon-by-the-Bay institution. Edsel, big for an oriental chap at 6' 200 lbs. in his whitewall crew cut, long apron and omnipresent game-face scowl. If you walked in at prime time and didn't know Edsel you were in for some first-class abuse taking. He was the Pol Pot of noodledom and when it came to insults, he took no prisoners."
When you're dealing with the Pol Pot of noodledom, issues of rudeness pale by comparison.
I think his customers enjoyed the treatment he meted out, and it was probably well deserved. Look at this picture:
The caption is Edsel Ford Fong and some "abused" customers, 1982
Hmmm...
(I'd say he wasn't rude enough, except I don't want to be disrespectful.)
:: Comments left behind ::
Is Herb Caen still writing? No?
Then we don't read the Chron.
I grew up reading Herb Caen. It was never about politics. It was always about teh Catholic. (In a Catholic way.)
Reminds me of another Chinese Restaurant in San Francisco I once visited with my then girlfriend (or had she moved on by then - no matter we stayed friends for a long time after we broke up) Christine Chapman. Probably about '68 or '69. We started up the stairs and got a bad vibe. A little further up worse. Halfway up the badness peaked and Christine wanted to leave. I, being adventurous/stupid said lets keep going and see what is at the top. Then the vibes got better got better. Very nice at the top.
The folks there were very nice. Put us at a table where we could see almost everything. It had an all Chinese clientele. The waiter took our order and the food was quite good. The price was reasonable.
The whole time we were there Chinese men seemed to disappear into the woodwork every five or ten minutes. Then other men would appear from no where rubbing their suit coat lapels as if they loved them and the feel of the merchandise. It wasn't too hard to figure out what was going on. Christine and I paid and left after the meal saying nothing about the goings on.
Until we got to the street. Then we looked at each other and smiled. And discussed what was going on. For those of you unfamiliar. There was probably a back room opium den. We never went back.
We were regulars at a place with "World" in the name in Chinatown. I forget the rest. I first practiced eating with chop sticks there.
Charging $600 for tickets to the Tea Party Convention, so attendees can eat steak and lobster at the Opryland while listening to a mainstream politician (Sarah Palin) who's being paid $115k to give a speech - this is supposed to be a grassroots populist movement aimed at changing the status quo in DC? LOL.
Tea Party fraud? For charging money? The people who went there wanted to go. They willingly forked over their own money to see the show and be a part of it. But OK I'm down with the idea that it was a fraud. But the Government is a bigger fraud. With the Tea Party Convention I had a choice. I didn't have to support it if I didn't want to. I didn't have to pay a dime to watch Andrew Breitbart there. The Government is different. It makes me pay for things I don't even want at the point of a gun. Which makes the Government not only a bigger fraud but also a Criminal Enterprise.
Wouldn't surprise me to learn the ruetheday is also convinced that there are no such things as true mass movements; that common folk are incapable of organizing on their own, on an ad hoc basis. Something like the Tea Party Movement has to be organized by a mysterious cabal (tinc) passing on orders from on high, because ordinary people are incapable of doing anything for themselves.
In other words, ruetheday is an authoritarian with delusions of insight.
Damn grassroots, occasionally eating lobster and spending their own money as they see fit.
And note that the government spent $2.5 million Sunday on a 30-second ad spot, and told us they were doing it to save us money.
That $2.5 million was in addition to the $3.5 million they spend EVERY 30 seconds.
:: Joe G. February 8, 2010 02:45 PM
If only class war had remained a Marxist meme (11:31 AM)
To what class should Barack Obama be assigned? That is not an easy question to answer, because while it's clear that he is now at the top of the political and "intellectual" ruling class elite, his background cannot easily be characterized in ordinary class terms as we understand them (or, as we once understood them). To call his background "working class" would be dishonest, because he lacks the trappings of that. Much as he wants and pretends to have them. He certainly was not rich, but neither was he poor. That would place him in the "middle class" except that doesn't have quite the right ring to it -- because classes in this country are not defined solely in economic terms.
Thus, if a guy who works a blue collar job for a living has a Ph.D. in History or Public Policy, it seems less than honest to refer to him as "working class." I have met many people in the San Francisco Bay Area who work with their hands despite advanced degrees. Cab drivers with Ph.D's are considered part of the Bay Area charm. Gay guys with genius IQs (smart enough to contribute great things to any number of fields) can be found working in "stereotypical" careers as hairdressers. Not that this should come as a surprise; one of the smartest guys I ever knew did nothing with his life but have sex and collect comic books. Yet it would never have occurred to me to assign him to the category of "lower class" -- much less "the poor."
The old "upper class" that used to exist when I was a child has become largely a joke. They're still there, they still have old family names and inherited money, but forget about people looking up to them, them setting an example for the middle class, or any of that "noblesse oblige" stuff. They just sit on their money and hide from the world, hoping to avoid attention, and hoping they'll be left alone. The middle class is still quite large, but they are now so culturally diverse that it is misleading to use that term to define them as a cultural group. Maybe "culturally diverse" is the wrong term, because within that group we call the middle class, there are enormous, bitter cultural divides. Silly little things of the sort I laugh at -- like condoms and sex ed in the schools and whether the boy scouts should allow gays -- have become cultural battlefields. People hate each other over them, and they provide a perfect opportunity for one "side" to look down on the other. Even religion isn't religion anymore, but another battleground. Stuff that was once a fairly straightforward and non-controversial part of a normal education has been politicized. Evolution is routinely attacked as a form of "political correctness." Little wonder, because the parents who want condoms on bananas in class and gays in the Boy Scouts often enjoy baiting people so they can feel superior, and the people they bait bait back. So, while I don't know what class is anymore and cannot define it, I see class war everywhere. It frequently takes the form of "the elites" versus "us regular people."
Part of what we call the American Dream involved class mobility. These days, I pity those who moved their way out of a genuine working class background into Ivy League degrees only to find that they are subject to derision. While this derision might not be as severe as it would if they were inner city welfare blacks caught "acting white," populism -- like most isms -- tends to work that way.
I've said this before and I am sure I'll say it again. It really shouldn't matter where someone went to school or how much (or how little) money that person had, or whether he -- and more importantly his father before him -- worked with his hands. But matter it does -- to the people on both sides who fight these class wars.
I find it refreshing that Sarah Palin is a down-to-earth real person, and not an Ivy League snot. I can't stand the fact that a degree from Harvard conveys a quasi divine right to tell people what to do and how to live their lives, and I like the fact that Sarah Palin very definitely does not want to do that. However, if I thought she did want to run people's lives, where she went to college would be a secondary issue. Similarly, if a hands-off libertarian type had gone to Harvard, I'd be be very quick to forgive. These things should not matter. Just as an Ivy League education should convey no right to rule, unless we're going to use a neo-Maoist litmus test, neither should the lack thereof.
Easy for me to say, isn't it? I fled the Ivy League. Broke my mom's heart by choosing Berkeley over Penn and Princeton. I feel no duty to any class, and I wish class war would disappear. Perhaps I am a naive idealist, but as far as I'm concerned, class war is a Marxist meme, and you don't fight Marxist memes by imitating them, any more than you fight racism with racism.
Wow, how did this get started? I'm on the verge of denouncing conservative Marxism or Marxist conservatism, when all I wanted to do was say something about Barack Obama's elusive "class issues" in light of this poignant piece by Sean Kinsell. For a little class background, Sean happens to hail from the "real" working class. His father wasn't a factory worker with a Ph.D. but the real thing. Unlike me, Sean did not condescendingly flee from something that was in his "blood"; he saw the Ivy League as something to aspire to, and he dislike the unthinking attacks on everything Ivy League:
...a lot of actual working-class people tend to perceive "public service" positions like his (Obama's) as out-of-touch condescension, geared less toward helping the disadvantaged to clear a path toward achieving their own goals than toward making the public servant feel good about his own magnanimity. It's the modern version of the manor-house-ladies-visiting-food-and-moral-hectoring-on-the-cottage-dwellers routine.
Perhaps Obama did doubt that he was "accomplishing much" as a community organizer, in the sense of serving people in need. Or perhaps, like seemingly thousands of other Ivy grads each year, he decided that what he was doing wasn't fast-track enough and that, as a humanities/social-science major, his best shot at giving himself a grad-degree boost was law school. And when I say "fast-track," I'm not just talking about money; power, influence, and image figure into a lot of people's calculations of self-worth as much as money does. (Judis does recognize that.) New York is chock-a-block with cutthroat lawyers who imagine they're more moral and civic-minded than the bankers downtown--just because, as nearly as I've ever been able to tell, they don't work for banks.
There are two major problems in perceiving these things clearly, I think. One is that there's a serious class divide in America based on expectations. Obama grew up, it appears, among people who saw going to a hoity-toity college and then bossing people around for a living as the natural progression of things. Working-class people do not. (I say this as the son of a steelworker and a high-school dropout who later got a GED and a data-operations certification. My parents and their friends were optimistic and happy, but the idea of wanting to devote your working life to lording it over people would have been very foreign to them.) I'm sure Obama had times when he had to struggle--difficult exams and all that--but he was following the same path as his peers, and one that his elders were presumably easing him along. That doesn't diminish his actual accomplishments, but I suspect it does make it pretty much impossible for him to imagine what life is like for people who have succeeded by working their way up.
Sean sees Obama as an insecure poseur, and thinks that he should try being honest about his background:
It never occurred to me in high school that I wouldn't be applying to Ivies like my more comfortably-off friends. (I have my parents to thank for that, BTW. They would have been perfectly justified in informing me that it was my responsibility to work my way through college. Instead, they took out parent loans so I could spend four years daydreaming about Japanese literature for a Penn degree.) I go back to my hometown, and much as I love spending time with my parents and other relatives, I'm an outsider there.
In a way, it breaks my heart. We all want to feel close to our origins, and I'm far more distant from mine than the two-hour drive might suggest. In another way, though, this is the richness of America: you the individual do not have to be what others assume you were born to be. Though I won't pretend I don't like money, I don't value the way I live because I make more than my father does; I value it because it suits my personality. Happily, I'm not a politician, so I don't have to go back to Allentown and pretend unconvincingly to be sunk in and at home there. If President Obama wants to succeed more with regular folks, maybe he could stop trying to act like one of them (seriously, man-no...just, no) and be frank about being an outsider and politician.
He's right about Obama, and if the conservatives country is lucky, Sean's advice will not be read or heeded by the poseur in chief. More personally, I can identify with Sean's feeling of being an outsider. I feel like an outsider anywhere I go. Whether I'm in trendy leftist Manhattan, the People's Republic of Berkeley, the different and more ugly new world of the Philadelphia suburbs where I once grew up, or here in Ann Arbor, where the average age is about 20, and people walk around with their ears plugged with Ipods and their eyes riveted to tiny screens. What do you do if you don't fit in? Politically, I long ago rejected liberalism, yet I am not a conservative and I get a bit tired of the assumption that I am supposed to get behind what is called "conservatism," because, you know, with ideologues, it isn't enough to sincerely oppose statism and believe in the Constitution. To be a conservative, you have to acknowledge, at least respect, an evermore irritating litany of memes and conspiracy theories, and you have to denounce "elitism," "intellectualism," "secularism," "RINOism" and all things Ivy League. It all evokes class war, which is predicated on the ad hominem fallacy. It was what made me detest the left, and it hardly endears me to the right
Just to get my bearings, I thought I'd look again at the various litmus tests. Not much has changed.
My answers to this test supposedly indicated that I was overall 80% conservative and 20% liberal:
Overall: 80% Conservative, 20% Liberal
Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal
Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal
Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal
I am unable to locate that test online now, but I suspect the results would be unchanged.
I found another test called Typology, and the results indicated that I belong to the "Enterpriser" group. While I probably belong to that "type," I am very suspicious about the way it is described in stereotypical terms that did not represent the answers I gave. I doubt its accuracy and reliability as a serious test. (But it's from the liberal left Pew Center, which has a long history of trying to write libertarianism out of the political equations, and is just as guilty as conservative organizers who relentlessly try to do the same thing.)
(How solidly depends on my waffling answers to the question about the military draft; which I would support in the event of a serious war. If I say "NO" to the draft, then my little red dot moves all the way at the top of the chart's libertarian apex.)
Lastly, there's the so-called "political compass test" which is long and irritating, and which seems designed from a left-wing perspective, and which made me out to be a borderline authoritarian, which I am not:
As to my class, much as I find the subject annoying, I found a rather silly online test which asks about things like the quality of your teeth and what you like for leisure and travel, and here are my results:
You Are Upper Class
Class isn't always about money, and you've at least got the brains, manners, and interests of an upper class person.
You don't have a trashy bone in your body, and you don't pretend to be someone you're not.
You're comfortable with your station in life, and class issues don't really bother you.
The finest things in life are within your reach, and you're comfortable enjoying them.
You may end up: A business leader, corporate lawyer, or philanthropist
Other people who share your class: Bill Gates, Oprah, former world leaders like Bill Clinton, and those reclusive billionaires no one ever talks about.
More stereotypes. Class issues don't bother me? Really? Were I not too culturally fatigued to care, I would consider the test to be little more than a dissembled and manipulative ad hominem attack.
UPDATE: Many thanks for Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all.
Comments welcome, agree or disagree.
:: Comments left behind ::
In common with other post-modernists, Barack Obama has no class.
....you're making this more difficult than it needs to be.
He's a Marxist-Leninist Communist. His sole purpose is the destruction of the United States.
If you doubt this, please show me any major effort he has attempted that has been 'good' for US.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
:: Chuck Pelto February 8, 2010 10:24 AM
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." A. Einstein.
Please, Obama is a typical black leftist product of an affirmative action ivy league education. Not smart, but presents well. "Clean and articulate", J Biden. "The Magic Negro", LA Times.
Obama is what happens when an affirmative action ivy league education meets Chicago thug politics with madison ave training. Obama thinks special treatment is accomplishment.
:: EconRob February 8, 2010 10:44 AM
To be a conservative, you have to acknowledge, at least respect, an ever more irritating litany of memes and conspiracy theories, and you have to denounce "elitism," "intellectualism," "secularism," "RINOism" and all things Ivy League.
If you believe that caricature, you're a rather unimaginative liberal class-warrior.
:: Insufficiently Sensitive February 8, 2010 10:51 AM
i think Stalin established a category called "rootless cosmopolitans".
they weren't as high on the list as counter revolutionaries or kulaks, but he got to them eventually.
:: attackcartoons February 8, 2010 10:55 AM
Affirmative action has completely destroyed the meaning of an ivy league "education". The typical Asian is a genius. The typical black could not get into a state college on merit. Check out mychoices.net!
:: Lester February 8, 2010 10:58 AM
yet I am not a conservative and I get a bit tired of the assumption that I am supposed to get behind what is called "conservatism," because, you know, with ideologues, it isn't enough to sincerely oppose statism and believe in the Constitution.
That in a nutshell sums up my personal philosophy. I'm not a conservative, though I agree with some of the core political beliefs. On the other hand I'm most certainly not a liberal. At best I describe myself as a libertarian.
:: February 8, 2010 11:08 AM
yet I am not a conservative and I get a bit tired of the assumption that I am supposed to get behind what is called "conservatism," because, you know, with ideologues, it isn't enough to sincerely oppose statism and believe in the Constitution.
That in a nutshell sums up my personal philosophy. I'm not a conservative, though I agree with some of the core political beliefs. On the other hand I'm most certainly not a liberal. At best I describe myself as a libertarian.
It does get all rather tiresome.
"How can you call him upper class when he has no manners?"
"What does it mean to be a man?
To ride well, to shoot straight, an always speak the truth."
These days, "What ideology can I espouse that will enable me to sneer at the most people."
:: toad February 8, 2010 11:39 AM
"Cab drivers with Ph.D's are considered part of the Bay Area charm"
Having grown up in the Bay Area, I have to dispute this one. I've never come across a cab driver who had a PhD, even in some really useless "studies" field, and I doubt you have either, though I can believe you've come across cabbies who claim to (particularly if you spent a lot of time around Berkeley).
"Gay guys with genius IQs (smart enough to contribute great things to any number of fields) can be found working in "stereotypical" careers as hairdressers"
There's a bit of divergence between the lower and upper ends of that business, and you're probably not talking about people who work at Supercuts (at least not for long). A lot of hairdressers spill more money than the average PhD makes.
"one of the smartest guys I ever knew did nothing with his life but have sex and collect comic books"
Don't confuse Mensa members who are really good at going to school and Trivial Pursuit but lack any useful life skills with smart people.
:: J February 8, 2010 11:45 AM
"Class" implies more than an economic category, more than ancestral provenance-- character, integrity, a personal ethos governing public morality in terms of "virtue". Maintain standards not iron-clad but honorable, trustworthy in the sense of adherence to principles over and above one's own immediate self-interest: "Bequeath posterity wise learning in good cause, an affirmation of discernment, trust. Who flees fatality pursues not Life."
By accident of fate, Marcus Aurelius was born a slave; Lincoln a backwoods rail-splitter; George Washington a Virginia planter. Yet all were paragons of Class, exemplars of the Stoic virtues expounded by Cicero, Epictetus, and Seneca. Others that come to mind are Churchill, de Gaulle, Einstein... we recommend S.R. Letwin, "The Gentleman in Trollope" (1982), a masterful
evocation of true values regardless of exigent Where and When.
Easy enough to juxtapose Absolute with Relative in benighted contemporary terms. But Eubie Blake's old jazz-musician trope says it all: "If you have to ask what jazz is, then you'll never know."
"One of the smartest guys I ever knew did nothing with his life but have sex and collect comic books."
Wait, you can do both? I've been had!
:: Ted February 8, 2010 12:36 PM
An excellent column that I'm going to print out and give to some people.
Jay Manifold: You can do both, just not at the same time (serious back injuries can result).
:: alittlesense February 8, 2010 01:02 PM
Barry Soetoro has been playing the short con all his life -- Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law, Chicago, the Illinois Senate -- and he's succeeded by allowing his marks to treat him like a blank canvass opon which they're allowed to paint their favorite liberal fantasy...a black guy who is somehow BOTH exotic AND just like them. And it's always worked because he could pocket the swag and get out of town before each set of marks figured him out. Trouble is, now he's in over his head, the con is a bust, and the marks are onto him. And there's no where left to run...
:: Uh, Clem February 8, 2010 01:09 PM
Barry Soetoro has been playing the short con all his life -- Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law, Chicago, the Illinois Senate -- and he's succeeded by allowing his marks to treat him like a blank canvas opon which they're allowed to paint their favorite liberal fantasy...a black guy who is somehow BOTH exotic AND just like them. And it's always worked; each time, he's been able to pocket the swag and get out of town before his marks figured him out. Trouble is, now he's in over his head, the con is a bust, and the marks are onto him. And there's no place left to run...
:: Uh, Clem February 8, 2010 01:11 PM
"One of the smartest guys I ever knew did nothing with his life but have sex and collect comic books."
QED. If he can successfully get through life doing nothing but the two things he most enjoys (and to top it, two things generally considered inversely correlated), he must be plenty smart. I'd ask him for advice, but he's probably to smart to waste time on the likes of me.
:: Andre February 8, 2010 01:15 PM
"To" smart? Maybe he can offer me spelling advice.
:: Andre February 8, 2010 01:16 PM
The issue is not class, but of the technocratic pretensions of progressivism.
:: Leif February 8, 2010 01:28 PM
Obama's "class membership" is easy: he is an /intelligent/ (hard "G"), a member of the intelligentsia.
Richard Pipes defined an /intelligent/ as someone who was not only well-educated, but who had an "oppositional view of the Old Regime". In his own example, two siblings might have the same upbringing, the same education, the same connections in society: but if one went into the Imperial Civil Service and the other dropped out and hung around with anarchists and such, only the latter was an /intelligent/.
:: David February 8, 2010 01:29 PM
(Here via Instapundit, by the way.) Surely Paul Fussell has already taxonomized this? Mr. Obama wishes very much to be Class X.
:: Markham S. Pyle February 8, 2010 01:36 PM
Markham, Fussell was careful to call it "Category X," because its members had escaped their classes. You bring up a useful way of looking at these things, though: in Fussell's terms, I think people want to take Obama as a high prole when he was actually middle. (Sarah Palin gets that sort of thing a lot, too.)
Fair enough, but it's also a bad idea to assume that people only choose underachieving lives out of incompetence rather than preference. -- Sean Kinsell
I recall one general meeting of a local chapter of Mensa where they had an attorney talking about some legal issue or other.
As with most such gatherings, there's usually at least ONE person who enjoys taking pot-shots at the speaker. And this meeting was no exception. The attorney got a bit testy and commented, "If you're so smart, why aren't you RICH?"
At which point several of the attending members replied, "Because we've got more personal integrity than some shyster lawyer."
The speaker left....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Hold it Scotty. I just discovered Mensa.]
:: Chuck Pelto February 8, 2010 02:35 PM
The one question that stumped me was... You'd like to go on vacation in? None of the places really appealed to me. What about the beach or a national park or Alaska? There's much more to see than Disney or Paris.
:: Roux February 8, 2010 02:49 PM
Diligence, luck, and a good plan all rank higher than intelligence to a successful life. Wisdom ranks higher than any of them.
There is a definite element of 'If the Left does it, the Right has to follow'. There were people who blamed the US for the Arms Race. But if the US had not fought back, the Soviets would have simply ran over us.
I think the solution is turn the other cheek.
"Yep, I'm dumb. I'm a Redneck, Southern bigot. Insult me again. Now let's discuss the issue since we've established that you're smarter than me."
The answer is not to stop fighting the class war, but to render it irrelevant.
Some of your post is good, and some is typical Libertarian complaint. 'Those conservatives are mean about not letting me into their club even tho' I think they're kinda stupid'. I'm a Conservative. You think some things I worry about are laughable. Fine. I think some of your positions are simplistic. Most of the time we agree, but when we don't, we don't. I'm not going to toss my views aside just so you can turn the Conservatives into Libertarians.
:: Eric R. Ashley February 8, 2010 02:59 PM
And oh yes, another part to the Left-Right "I'm smarter than you cause I went to Ivy" war....Reagan's line about his plan to deal with the Sovs.
"They lose, we win."
I propose a plan to destroy the Left. This needs to be the aim of the Right. One aspect of this is to depoliticize much of life.
:: Eric R. Ashley February 8, 2010 03:10 PM
I do think that the class lines have broken down in large measure, especially (as you note) to the extent that middle class means just about nothing specific anymore.
Class only comes up in my life when I realize that according to the prevailing intellectual and polical memes, I am not entitled to have an opinion on the issues of the day (one that falls into the libertarian/conservative spectrum) because I am supposedly "privileged." Seeings how I raised in the inner city by a single mom who was herself a coal-miner's daughter and high-school dropout, the privileged charge leaves me scratching my head in bewilderment.
:: RigelDog February 8, 2010 03:23 PM
"These days, I pity those who moved their way out of a genuine working class background into Ivy League degrees only to find that they are subject to derision."
Did you have someone in mind here? I'm on the margins of academia, and in academia no one with an Ivy League degree is subject to derision. They are all worshiped. Those of us without such degrees get stomped on.
:: JFP February 8, 2010 03:57 PM
@alittlesense: Actually, that was "Ted"'s comment. Though something of the sort occurred to me as well ...
Since Eric put up a mystery doo wop song, I thought it might be nice to put up a song that was no mystery and that has over a million YouTube hits.
For you young whipper snappers here is a wiki on doo wop. Note: whipper snapper may have been derived from whipster. And if they had only left off the "w" they would have had hipster. Which turns everything on its head and leaves the old farts as squares. And of course head..... I could go on. But I'm not going to.
:: Comments left behind ::
Saturday night mystery song (12:50 AM)
Earlier today I found a longtime favorite doo-wop song that I've listened to for years recently uploaded to YouTube.
Hardly a video, but it does have a cute picture, and I also think it's cute that it has only had 23 views!
The song is the mysterious "Oh You," by an obscure doo-wop group called The Chalons. Great rhythm, great vocals, great piano and an amazing guitar lead. There's also a disconcerting skip at 2:01 -- in exactly the same place as in the MP3 version that's on my player, so it's probably the same tune that's been lovingly passed around.
I would love to know more about them. Anything about them. Despite a diligent search, though, I have been able to learn next to nothing about this very talented group, except I did learn that someone else has also discovered nothing:
The Chalons were a typical black doo-wop group of the time. I cannot find out more about them.
When the only thing you can find out after a long search is someone else saying he can't find out anything, you know you're in trouble searching.
They're great, though, and I'd like to help immortalize them, whether I know anything about them or not.
(Whether the Chalons were named after the important ancient battle, will probably remain equally mysterious.)
:: Comments left behind ::
First Demoralize (12:48 AM)
Yuri Besmenov was a KGB Agent. You can watch more of Yuri at YouTube.
Bear in mind that Bezmenov worked in India, we defeated the Russians, and the interviewer is a loopy Bircher.
This kind of thing fuels the kind of crackpots who think people who like sex and drugs (or anyone they can't win an argument against) have been "brainwashed" by the KGB.
Atheism, the homos, they're all a Commie plot! We need God! And traditional values!
People like these guys would say that I am a victim of a Gramscian/KGB brainwashing plot simply because I believe in sexual freedom and legalization of drugs. (Plug in your favorite peeve, and you'll find that communist agents were behind it.)
It's true that Mao wanted to flood America with heroin. I'm sure plenty of commies wanted to flood the country with porn. That does not mean people who believe in freedom to partake in these things were brainwashed.
By the way, we need "real" religion, and not "squishy" spirituality. Bezmenov points out in this vidoe that Yoga was another Commie plot:
From time to time, I write posts about Salvador Dalí. However, I tend to move on from one thing to another, and unfortunately, this blog doesn't have categories, so things get lost.
Last night I collected and cross-posted the Dalí posts into a blog I started years ago, but neglected, Daliblog.com.
I don't know whether there is anyone who might want to read only my Dalí posts, but if so, there it is.
Maybe I should come up with categories for the rest of the stuff here. Yeah, and maybe I should get organized and clean up the blogroll, which deserves an intervention from professionals who save people from their own clutter. Right.
One neurosis at a time.....
But yes, a facelift of some sort is probably in order.
And no but about it, in the case of Lenin, a butt lift is in order!
Contrary to what his detractors say, he had unbridled contempt for politics. (Yay!)
But esteel, Dalí he wuzzzz....
pohLEEticall!
If you like my Dalí posts, do check out my modest little Dalí Blog.
:: Comments left behind ::
Liberty, Health Care, and WalMart (03:50 PM)
A fairly absurd argument that Dems' health care reform bill will increase liberty from William Galston:
So when the Tea Partiers complain that a government health insurance mandate invades their liberty, they reveal a defective understanding of the logic of liberty in a modern society. Individuals who choose to go without health insurance could try to resolve the contradiction by signing a document foreswearing all reliance on health care they didn't pay for themselves. But, because our medical norms don't permit us to leave injured accident victims at the side of the road, such a document couldn't be enforced. To be a citizen of the United States today is to live in a community where individual health care choices can have social consequences, a fact to which government can legitimately respond.
The obvious fallacy in this argument is that choosing not to insure against health care costs is not an announcement one will refuse to pay them when they are incurred, particularly in extremis. Rather than smiting such spurious strawmen, Galston might explain how a policy of throwing people in jail for not buying health insurance can be called consonant with maximizing liberty outside of an Orwell novel.
In most goods and services there are very few active consumers. What happens is, everybody selling a good is affected by Wal-Mart. You benefit from that wherever you are. So many of those who oppose consumer-driven health care use the perfect as the enemy of the good. You're not going to shop for health care if you're hit by a bus. That's not the point. The point is you're served in a health-care system that's been tightened up, both from a cost and quality point of view, by the fact that some consumers, for many procedures, are shopping around, and not just on price.
The inefficient government is already paying for half or more of health care by some estimates, and insurance companies granted near-monopolies by state law cover all but a few percent of the rest. That's not a recipe for driving efficiency, and the smaller we make the already-tiny fraction of people who are still incentivized to shop around for health care the worse off we're all going to be in the end. The bill under consideration would make it zero.
:: Comments left behind ::
"liberty in a modern society" = slave of the state
:: pst314 February 6, 2010 05:55 PM
Many years ago, my liberal friends argued that helmet laws were needed to protect the taxpayers from the costs of caring for uninsured accident victims. They scoffed when I pointed out that this logic could just as easily be used to justify laws outlawing skateboarding, black diamond ski slopes, skydiving, etc. Dependents of the state soon become slaves of the state.
:: pst314 February 6, 2010 05:59 PM
A guy who posts at zomblog argued (correctly in my book) that universal healthcare turns us all into busybodies. Your weight problem, smoking, drinking, dangerous activities are now truely my concern, at least fiscally, and so I have a right to have some say in your choices.
:: RickC February 6, 2010 08:20 PM
It is the inability of social reformers to accept the free actions of those they would care for (sic!) that makes government-sponsored programs tyranny by definition.
:: Brett February 7, 2010 12:17 PM
As Congress goes under the bus, "principles" trump triangulation! (02:05 PM)
...for those seeking a true measure of Obama's judgment, on both policy and politics, the meeting between the president and Senate Democrats yesterday was much more instructive. Obama's words made it clear that, notwithstanding his party's recent election losses at the polls and its declining poll ratings, he has no intention of embarking on a Bill Clinton-style "triangulation" strategy.
This is not surprising. As I argued earlier, if Obama moves to the center now, not only would he look weak, but there's a serious risk that he might just save enough congressional seats to keep it in Democratic hands. And if that happens, the American voters (who remain center-right) would be much more inclined to vote him out in 2012.
But if OTOH, the Republicans re-take Congress in the fall, that dramatically increases Obama's chances of reelection (as the guy who would help keep in place that reassuring gridlock that American voters historically favor). Say what you want about Obama, but I think he's smart enough to realize this.
If my theory is correct, then once the Democrats lose Congress, then and only then would the Obama triangulation strategy begin in earnest. I think that any comparisons with Clinton triangulation are thus premature, and I think it should be remembered that Clinton's triangulation began after the disastrous Democratic losses in 1994 (which was the birth of the "Contract With America").
There's plenty of time for triangulation. Meanwhile, it is in Obama's best interest to have his party lose.
What's especially remarkable about this is that even as he betrays his party, he is nonetheless being praised for his "principles" -- by the very people he is screwing:
The second striking thing was how easily he appeared to write off [Senator Blanche] Lincoln politically. Conceding nothing, he implied that her defeat was not only a foregone conclusion, but also an acceptable price to pay for staying the course on policy. To be sure, maybe the whole thing was just kabuki -- Lincoln standing up to the president for the benefit of the folks back home who don't like him, and Obama obligingly playing his part. But it sure looked pretty spontaneous to me.
The Lincoln-Obama debate epitomized the left-vs.-center debate within the Democratic Party these days, which is much broader than health care, even though it is necessarily focused on that for the moment. The question is whether the party should cut its losses on comprehensive health reform, or keep pursuing it despite the political headwinds, on the grounds that even an initially unpopular bill would be easier to defend than no bill at all.
David Plouffe, back in the White House to direct post-Massachusetts political operations, favors nailing the party's colors to the health-care mast. He wrote recently in the Post that "if we do not pass it, the GOP will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway, and voters will have no ability to measure its upside. If we do pass it, dozens of protections and benefits take effect this year."
Obama's answer to Lincoln suggests that he fully embraces the Plouffe strategy. I don't understand it. Independently of what anyone might think of the health-care bill's merits, the public's attitude is hardening against it; it is politically toxic, period. If Virginia and New Jersey didn't prove that, Massachusetts did. And November could prove it again. If the Dems tip-toe away from health care now, it would be embarrassing, but they would at least give the electorate time to forget the issue and focus on the Democrats' other accomplishments -- if they can come up with some between now and November.
Still, give the president credit: No one can accuse him of bending his principles to politics. Of course, if there's a price to be paid for that this year, he won't be the one paying it. Blanche Lincoln, among others, will get to do that.
He won't be the one paying it.
Truer words were never spoken.
But in general, few Democrats seem to really care about whether he's betraying his party. The important part of the White House strategy is that he be sung the praises for standing up for his principles.
For now, of course.
What I can't figure out is how many Democrats -- especially the rank and file -- have caught on to him. I suspect that in elite Democratic circles, a decision has already been made to basically throw Congress under the proverbial bus now in order to save the Obama administration later, but they don't want the ordinary people to know. Hence the sycophantic talk of "principles" -- and the meme fits the Obama as hero narrative. Plenty of Democrats will buy it. (Plus, it's red meat for the hard left base.)
And when the time comes from him to finally be "forced" to move to the center, he will have had no choice, and they can blame the Republicans.
That the Democratic elite seem to prefer having an Obama administration with a Republican Congress to a Democratic Congress with a Republican president begs the question of what people on the right might prefer.
I realize this isn't a professional poll, nor are my readers necessarily on the right, but short of Republicans controlling both the White House and Congress, but I'm just wondering.... If you had to choose, how many of you might prefer an Obama presidency with a Republican Congress? Or A Republican president with a Democratic Congress?
MORE: The president's fascinating call to his fellow Democrats to "just turn off... the blogs" is making sense, especially because the advice was directed to a Democrat faced with the lose of his seat:
The president's advice came in answer to a question from Sen. Mike Bennet, D-CO, who is facing a difficult re-election fight back home and wanted to know what Democrats and Republicans can do "to fix this institution so that our democracy can actually withstand the test that we're facing right now."
"You know what I think would actually make a difference, Michael? I think if everybody here -- excuse all the members of the press who are here -- if everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your blogs," Obama said, before being interrupted by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, who piped up, "And MSNBC!"
Obama, appropriately reminded of the network with shows more friendly to liberals, continued, "Just turn off the TV -- MSNBC, blogs -- and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics. ... It is much more difficult to get a conversation focused on how are we going to help people than a conversation about how is this going to help or hurt somebody politically."
(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Hmmm... Does this mean all my Democratic readers are going to turn off this blog? No more Democrats reading Classical Values, by presidential edict? I'm devastated. Crushed!
And frankly, I think they're more than a little bit jealous of the rebellious Tea Party phenomenon, because they're the ones in power, which means they cannot protest, cannot, um, fight the power.
God, how they must hate seeing people on the right doing that.
I'm not sure why people think "Clinton-style triangulation" did any good.
Under Clinton, the Dems lost ground on all fronts. After 8 years of prosperity and a friendly media his VP could not win the election (or it was so close that his party screwing up in Palm Beach cost him the election).
Clintons help Clintons.
The only policy objectives he accomplished were NAFTA (using the GOP to beat his own party) and DADT.
Everything else was the GOP congress doing it despite him, like welfare reform.
Bill lived in a perfect storm.
It was the End of History, we had no real enemies so we could be frivolous after decades of war and the threat of annihilation.
Not having to worry about the Commie, Nazi or Yellow Hordes was cool. We didn't need no starchy Republicans talking about reality, we wanted a cheerul liar/used car salesman to tell us sweet, sweet lies.
The Information Age was beginning with its attendant increase in standard of living. The more we can have machinery do, the cheaper it is to do, which means that poor people in America right live better than 99% of all humans who have ever lived.
And of course, he was aided and abetted by a compliant media. Anything good for the Dems was blared, anything bad was blamed on the GOP. "Impeachment was all about sex" is still believed by a huge percentage of America. There was the NYTimesWashPostCNNABCCBSNBCetc. and in the other corner, Rush Limbaugh.
My box for Obama is marked, "Inept, radical leftist/marxist, Chicago-machine-politican".
The only thing he knows about non-radical-leftist America is that we're all stupid and something about NASCAR.
Clinton, of course, assumed all of America was stupid ("I didn't inhale." accused me of being stupid by its very utterance). He counted on it. I'm sure he used to sit around with Carville and laugh at some of the bullshit the NY Times or CNN swallowed.
The biggest difference, I think, is that Clinton didn't believe in anything but power for Clinton, Obama really believes in radical leftist/marxist bullshit so he can't even help himself.
He really believes that if we just weren't too stupid to understand what he's saying we would be all for it.
I'd rather have a Republican President with a Democratic Congress. Why? Simple. As long as I have 34 Senators who won't allow my actual removal via impeachment, I have an enormous amount of power: Executive orders, the entire unelected Fourth Branch to write and enforce regulations ( Can and Trade will go through; EPA guarantees it ), even a fair amount of armed might through the military and Federal law enforcement. It is just our good fortune that neither Clinton nor (so far) Obama has been competent enough to use it. When he does, he won't have nearly the leaking and foot-dragging that President Bush faced from the bureaucracy; they're on his side as long as he can give them more ability to run others' lives and empire build.
:: SDN February 8, 2010 07:53 AM
Instapundit Interviews Breitbart (11:40 AM)
This is a must watch video. About 19 minutes. And worth every pico second. I really liked his take on the elitists of America and the world near the beginning. I also got a kick out of his Jewish shtick about 9:50 into the video. I also liked the fact that he considers himself a traitor to his class. Having gone to U. Chicago I can definitely relate.
The book mentioned at the beginning of of the video: Intellectuals
.
