90 Comments

1. whiskey:

Personnel is policy. For GWB, that meant his Texas cronies. For Obama, it’s Powers, Ayers, Wright, Farrakhan, Axelrod, Dorhn, the corrupt Chicago group, various minority grievance folks, ACORN, and the like.

Not a one of them able to govern from the center, by doling out goodies and results to the vast majority of the country. Already Biden is prepping the true believers into an impeachment battle over likely, selling Israel down the river. Anything from taking Iran’s side if it nukes Israel to invading Israel as Power wanted to in order to “liquidate” that nation and people, and replace it with Hamas.

I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in McCain’s centrist team, but at least there are people there who can govern in the center along the vast middle class’s interests. Obama’s people are by their own nature in constant conflict with and view as their deadliest enemies the majority of the nation: the White working and middle class.

Obama’s TEAM is a recipe for constant, unceasing conflict until one side wipes the other out politically. IT does not matter who Obama is, rather his team that will implement his policies. Clinton’s team at least had adults who had spent much time thinking about how to govern along the Bubba-center, Carville, Begala, Summers, Reich, etc.

Oct 22, 2008 - 3:33 pm 2. Whitehall:

Well, the Obama guy is selling “Hope.”

Looks like he has some buyers.

Oct 22, 2008 - 3:46 pm 3. Gaffe Prices:

the Niebuhr thing points to his weakness, his indecisiveness, his hesitancy in the face of challenges that can’t be mitigated by situational ethics.

If Kennedy had been decisive when he committed himself to the Bay of Pigs… (liberation Ocupation, lets call it, for lack of a better word) then Krushchev and She Guevara wouldn’t have had an island from which to aim nukes. [and hence no later Cuban Missile Crises]

If Amercan electorate had been more decisive and not have made a young, hesitant Senator who dithered and reneged in the face of commitments, then Kennedy might have survived to run anither day, with more experience, and more to burnish Hawkish credentials than the Kennedy campaign talk of “missile gap”s to 0bamas opportunistic support of Court decisions validating wire taps.

Add to that the closeness of the election, combined with the taint and tarnish by voter fraud in Cook County and Johnson County, and one realizes that the electorate rejected the Senator from Massachusetts’s inexperience, but not overwhelmingly enough.

Do things change and yet still remain the same? Obamas is no Kennedy, not on tax policy (Kennedy successfully lobbied Congress to lower tax rate from 75% to 39%, and capital gains down to 20%, for the sake of economic growth). And his foreign policy was hawkish enough to lead him to support war in Vietnam, in order to restore his resolve after the Bay of Pigs disaster.

Ironically, Kennedys policy prevented the fall of many more states to communist revolutions, particularly Indonesia, where Obamas would have had to rote learned Marxs manefesto instead of freedom to study the recitation in Arabic. Post Kennedy Policy, at congressional level, failed to honor Kennedys commitment, and forfitted Southeast Asia, but still managed to save others south of mainland Asia.

What ‘Vietnams’ will 0bamas plunder into? Just to camouflage his pathetic Niebuhresque dithering. Will ‘true believers’ follow along? Even those numbers are dwindling.
0bamas is faced down by the concrete fact that the office has enormous responsibilities and he is patheticaly, last minutely, trying to concretize something plausable, something credible that will “reconcile himself” NOT to “opposites”, but to reality itself.

(perhaps becuase he believes the delusion that he can or will be elected, or his Handlers belief that this election can be bought and stole, WTFKs?)

Trying to “reconcile” reality with the very logic and mind G-d, not Niebuhr, not Carter, not Chamberlain, and certainly not Kennnedy, gave to him. Ungrateful, petulant, ‘read between the lines!’-”I’m Not Qualified” delusionist. Sad . Pathetic . And Damned Dangerous. American Idol this IS NOT

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:06 pm 4. whiskey:

Whitehall — Obama’s gains are almost entirely among younger voters, and single women. His margin of victory is how many married White women, who are older, mostly he can peel off from McCain. Married women vote Republican, in most elections. Single women vote Democrat (social positioning, etc.)

Older Married Women expect promotion and security, they’ve worked hard all their lives, and deserve the advancement they have struggled and strived for. The anger at young, Black or Hispanic men being “Given” their spots in advancement is palpable, and forms the basis for the “PUMA” groups. Obama did poorly in the primaries with these women, and continues to have problems with them. Only the economy can tip them to him, but it’s not a group of “true believers.”

They will peel off if they are not given their due. Meanwhile White Working Men are going to be given the shaft, since for decades this has been the aim of Democrats as a whole.

Now, these people are not going anywhere. They will still form the majority, and pushing in lots of illegal aliens DURING A RECESSION guarantees IMPEACHMENT.

Here’s the weakness of Dems: their politics depend on good times to buffer the hurt done the majority to benefit the minority. Please, let’s look at how many “New Politics” PC-Multicultural-Affirmative Action-Community Organizer radicals have been successful in the US during a sustained, lasting recession/depression?

Obama is not FDR. He won’t deport Mexican nationals here illegally like FDR. He won’t limit jobs to mostly Whites as FDR did. He and his team are simply incapable of pandering to the majority and are indeed incapable of not fighting with them out of sheer habit, since they’ve done so since 1968.

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:11 pm 5. dla:

Obama will be held captive by the current Congress. The REAL leaders, should Obama win, will be Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

The same fate that tripped up Clinton in his first term awaits Obama. And Mr.Bill is a lot smarter than Barack, so I don’t believe Obama can avoid swinging super left immediately – assuming he actually wanted to govern from the center.

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:27 pm 6. RWE:

After stating that we had too many things to fix down here on Earth and that space exploration would have to wait, a position praised by his supporters, Obama visited Central Florida and – presto, suddenly said he would support both continuing the Shuttle and Pres Bush’s new manned exploration strategy. That sounds like nothing more than insincere political correctness to me. And that has become something of a hallmark of his campaign.

Obama’s statements about “people clinging to God and guns” and our military just “air raiding villages” and “spreading the wealth around” either represent windows into his soul or more willingness to say what he needs to at the moment – which is another window into his soul.

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:35 pm 7. wretchard:

I think we are looking at a bit of Obama pre-morse, a little bit like one of these ‘uh-oh’ moments when Wile E. Coyote notices nothing but air under his feet as he rushes off the cliff in pursuit of the elusive Roadrunner.

Now according to the laws of cartoons, Wile E. Coyote won’t actually start to fall until he looks down. So it may be that a number of Obama supporters, having already experienced their moment of delicious gloating over the Bush administration in the belief that Obama, if the polls are to be believed, will be the next President, are now feeling a sudden emptiness beneath their heels. Biden was first, ironically, with his confession that Obama will be “tested”. They’re like a dog who’s chased a truck and has now caught it. Niebuhr comes in handy at moments like that. Keeps you whistling in the dark. Don’t look down. Just don’t look down.

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:38 pm 8. Eggplant:

RWE said:

“After stating that we had too many things to fix down here on Earth and that space exploration would have to wait, a position praised by his supporters, Obama visited Central Florida and – presto, suddenly said he would support both continuing the Shuttle and Pres Bush’s new manned exploration strategy. That sounds like nothing more than insincere political correctness to me. And that has become something of a hallmark of his campaign.”

Great minds work alike. When I first read B. Hussein’s comment about the Space Program, my immediate emotive reaction was: “Oh goody, I’ll be employed for another 4 years”. Then two seconds later, reality set in and I thought: “Hussein is a liar! The Space Program is below his detection threshold.”.

My guess and hope is that he’ll ignore the Space Program as did Clinton. Bubba left the Space Program on autopilot under Dan Goldin (a G.H.W. Bush appointee) with a constant budget. Of course if the federal budget implodes (which is probable) then discretionary funding stuff like the Space Program will be first on the chopping block. I just hope that when I get laid-off, I’m not out on the street with 100 million other guys. That happened to my grandfather during the Great Depression. To support his family, he had to kill and pluck chickens in a slaughter house. That’s my ultimate nightmare, being stuck in some ultra-nasty job to support my family.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:03 pm 9. Unsk:

Obama wants you to think he’s a moderate. He talks in illusive, uplifting generalities to give the average voter the impression that Obama is just like them. Obana wants the voter to project their own views on to Obama. That is his con and he is an accomplished con artist. In one of his memoirs he basicially admits that as a black man, to get ahead he has to tell whitey what whitey wants to hear.

If Obama were genuine, he wouldn’t need to lie so much. As an example of his many lies, today, he said that ” he just wants to return the tax code to where it was before George Bush”. Except that er, there was no payroll tax on earner’s above $250,000 nor was Captial Gains at 28% when George Bush took office.

The lies just come so easy to the One. There is no hesitation, or nervousness when Obama lies, or anything to give him away. That what makes him so dangerous.

We really have no idea wants he wants to do as President. But it’s a good guess that he wants something similar to what Pelosi and Reid want: Much higher taxes, big socialized government control, Universal Health Care and a Leftist European like foreign policy.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:05 pm 10. Mike Sylwester:

McCain will lose because he failed to compel Obama to explain how Obama will govern. McCain let Obama get away with making vague, fantasy promises. So, we all must just guess how Obama will govern, although there are only two weeks left until he is elected.

As one of the very first questions in the first debate, the moderator Jim Lehrer asked each candidate what programs he might have to reduce or defer because of the financial crisis. Obama answered by listing five or so programs that were such top priorities that he could not reduce or defer them. Obama didn’t include in his answer any indication that the financial crisis would cause the reduction or deferment of even one penny from any program anywhere. Of course, clueless McCain failed to respond with the obvious retort that Obama’s answer to this question displayed Obama’s contempt for budget realities.

Anyway, anyone who gets a transcript of that first debate will have the answer to the question of how Obama will begin to govern.

As I recall, one of these top priorities that Obama listed was pre-school education. Obama intends that the Federal Government will pay for all three-year-old and four-year-old children to attend school. This “investment” is supposed to pay the country huge returns in the future.

As I recall, another of these top priorities was to develop solar and wind energy. Again, this “investment” is supposed to pay the country huge returns in the future.

And so it goes. One insane “investment” after another. In this fantasty world that the USA has decided to enter on November 4, we will be enrolling ourselves in a series of wise “investments” that will yield huge returns in a decade or two. That’s Obama’s governing philosophy.

Plus, we are lookjing at another eight years of non-enforcement of any immigration laws, plus free health care for everyone. Unbelievable.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:07 pm 11. Eggplant:

Whiskey said:

“Now, these people are not going anywhere. They will still form the majority, and pushing in lots of illegal aliens DURING A RECESSION guarantees IMPEACHMENT.”

Yeah right, a Democrat controlled Congress is going to impeach a Democrat President. Tell me another one…

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:09 pm 12. whiskey:

Wretchard, the problem is that America is not a cartoon.

If all the economic predictions are true, we face a prolonged recession/depression.

Political advantage in that situation accrues to whoever can buy off the vast middle with subsidies.

Do Obama and his team in place have any experience in that matter? No. At no time or place has Obama or his team members successfully managed a middle-class pander. Nor have Reid or Pelosi.

Obama’s margin of victory, should he win, is likely to be small, and resulting from middle class and working class, mostly White voters. Who will demand things for THEM. Setting up huge expectations surely to be dashed.

Instead, Obama offers as a specific goal the “transformation” of America and the World. It’s the basis for his whole campaign. Of course he will try “transformational” moments — sure to anger incredibly the White working and middle classes. Who want merely panders for them, not to be “transformed.”

With both Democrats, Bush, and McCain plus most of the Republican establishment backing the Amnesty Bill, it was killed by boiling populist anger over what amounted to give-aways to illegal foreigners, in a much better economic climate. Similar to the precursor of Dubai Ports etc.

Now imagine an Obama Presidency promising Reparations for Slavery (going to 12% of the population) from all the rest of the people. In a lasting, and deepening recession. Racism charges are irrelevant, when people are scrapping to keep their standard of living.

My best Guess is that a President Obama, would face impeachment and conviction at around the 2 year mark. Nixon’s victory in 1972 presaged a transformational moment. But his own team’s inability (along with himself) to take “yes” for an answer and accept victory led to his downfall. Forgotten amidst the Watergate scandal was that Nixon’s Wage-Price controls and other bureaucratic stuff like the EPA and so on imposed unacceptable costs to the White Working/Middle class that soured on him very quickly.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:11 pm 13. RWE:

Wretchard: I don’t think we are seeing “pre-buyers remorse”. Joe Biden made the famous statement about Obama being “clean” and which caused such a furor, but the furor was chaff to deflect the essence of Biden’s comment – i.e., there just ain’t much there, folks. Biden’s most recent comment about “the test” in the first year makes perfect sense in that context.

What is remarkable is the contrast between Obama and Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton was elected everyone at the top knew just what he was; they even all said it. I believe it was Tom Brokow that said of Clinton on election night “He’s just a political hack.” And he did not disappoint them. What was remarkable is how much some people – not those in the elites – invested in Bill Clinton. They supported him even after what the elites had known became clear to everyone.

In contrast, I really don’t think the elites know any more about Obama than anyone else does. They have not taken his measure. I have little doubt that most have concluded that they can use him for their own ends, based simply on his inexperience, his apparent malleability, his “present” and “I changed my mind” voting record, and his articulate doublespeak. But I don’t think they know what they really have here any better than does anyone else.

In one statement a while back McCain explicitly rejected the concept of the “continuous campaign” that Bill Clinton made so famous. I think we can be sure that Obama will mount a Continuous Campaign; it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:41 pm 14. Brock:

What continues to blow my mind is how many centrist Democrats are willing to take a chance on Obama when a perfectly centrist McCain, with a proven track record, is right there for the voting.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:46 pm 15. Fred:

Reinhold Niebuhr is about as anti-Utopian a modern theologian as they come. Pastor Niebuhr would have not compromised with Marxists and would most certainly have not made an alliance of convenience with clerics like Wright and Pfleger. And I don’t think Pastor Niebuhr would engage in deception for anything other than to save human lives. The people who fall for this Obamian con with respect to Niebuhr in all likelihood have not read his theology. Post-modernist elites falling for that shuck and jive are laughable. If there is one thing you can count on being the case in our contemporary America, it is the profound theological and scriptural illiteracy that exists across the country, especially among the elites.

President-to-be Obama’s heart and mind is with the Marxist tradition. Moderates do not spout the view “we have to redistribute the wealth.” Moderates do not join The New Party as one of their charter members. Moderates do not keep company with anti-American, Communist terrorists.

I’m not sold. I know what to expect starting in January, and have psychologically prepared myself for it.

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:04 pm 16. cedarford:

dla:
Obama will be held captive by the current Congress. The REAL leaders, should Obama win, will be Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

Highly doubtful. Both are low-rated leaders that can’t even block Bush’s failed Presidency from setting the national agenda.
Reid will be gone as Leader very soon, and Pelosi may yield to a more competent man, Steny Hoyer now that the thrill of her “1st Woman Speaker!!!!” accession is now over.

******************
Wretchard – I think we are looking at a bit of Obama pre-morse, a little bit like one of these ‘uh-oh’ moments when Wile E. Coyote notices nothing but air under his feet as he rushes off the cliff in pursuit of the elusive Roadrunner.

Well, yes. But this is an election where both Parties gave us Biography!! over substance.
An old man, somewhat angry and erratic and untrustworthy, of exhausted 30-year old ideas – paired with an underqualified newbie governor.
Against a slick talking guy who had 143 days in National office and an inspiring biographical alternative to the Suffering War Hero biography, paired with a Senator of a certain dimness and loose cannon nature.

If we select McCain, Wretchard, we would have 4 years of a distrusted President constantly betraying his base with most of his other stuff doctrinaire failed Reagan economic policy…plus 1-2 new wars he wants to start. And guarantee a strong Democrat would take office after a Jimmy Carter-like disaster era of McCain’s clueless ways that followed the failed Bush Presidency. That would also be a big Wile E. Coyote “Uhhh Oh!” moment as McCain followed his election with announcement of a “bipartisan” illegal alien amnesty, said he would work with Chuck Schumer to impose draconian regulation on US corporations..

This wasn’t an election while either Party came up with real winners. The Gore-Lieberman or even the Bush-Cheney (before they failed), even the Dole-Kemp ticket would have wiped the floor with them. Even Nixon, if he could be resurrected, would win against these 4 Bozos. (OK, he’s back from the dead – he at least KNOWS what he is doing – just keep a close eye on the old bastard!)

But at least Obama offers the POTENTIAL to pleasantly surprise. We could be wrong about him. But everyone knows what they will get with McCain – character – but a man who still thinks it’s 1980 and someone of low trust, and a near-30 year record of mediocrity and dimbulb ideas.

Pity we don’t have Hillary or Romney (or even Fred Thompson if he agreed to take amphetamines) to choose from.

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:13 pm 17. sigintel:

The ACME air allusion by W is perfect. I’m stunned by the people I meet who believe that Obama has a plan to govern. Every time I ask what’s his plan, first there’s the “10 yard stare” and then some BS on how wonderful he is…I always get the feeling that they too realize that “there is no there there” but cant articulate it because they are “in love” with the One… not for what he stands for, but for his ovation to hope, change and kum by ya. For Obama, it must be a disturbing feeling to know that you really are a “gutless wonder” whose first adversity situation is already “pre-programmed to fail”. Where can I buy that ACME air?

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:17 pm 18. trangbang68:

Polling fecal matter alert: The Zogby Poll that has Obama up by double figures claimed McCain has a 2% point lead among miltary personnel. An “Army Times” poll has McCain up 67%-23%.Which is it?

Obama building platforms for victory night in Chicago. Didn’t a guy named Hamen do that in the book of Esther in the Bible? How’d that turn out?

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:21 pm 19. Jim in Virginia:

Just my opinion, but a Democrat like Bill Clinton or Obama is likely to react more aggressively and irrationally to a foreign policy crisis than someone like Bush, McCain or Lieberman. See Clinton’s bombing of the aspirin factory in Sudan. George W. Bush waited a month after 9-11 before we went into Afghanistan; and two years of diplomacy before we went into Iraq. I suspect if Al Gore had been President on 9-11 we’d have invaded Iraq in two weeks. He’d need to prove that no one should mess with him.
If Obama wins and a US city is nuked, I expect he will respond by nuking Karachi or Pyongyang. Even though we could easily take out strategic infrastructure and personnel with non- nuclear weapons, Obama will need to show Americans, the Chinese, the Russians, the French, that they better not mess with him.

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:25 pm 20. Eggplant:

Fred said:

“I’m not sold. I know what to expect starting in January, and have psychologically prepared myself for it.”

I’m of the same mind as Fred on this. When I was an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley in the mid-1970s, I probably saw at least a dozen clones of our messianic President-to-be. Back in those days they were wearing berets and Che Guevara tee-shirts. Nobody really took those guys seriously, i.e. they were relics of the Free Speech Movement. The Che Guevara crowd was regarded as local color along with “Holy Hubert” (a street preacher), “Mr. Moon Man” (an ordinary lunatic) and the “Bubble Lady”. Now one of those idiots is soon to be President….

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:26 pm 21. peterike:

And Benj will tell us yet again about Obama’s vast “imagination” in 3, 2, 1….

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:41 pm 22. whiskey:

Clinton was not Obama. Clinton was perhaps a “hack” but he was a centrist. He did the minimum possible but still did it wrt terrorism.

Carter gave a weak, human-rights centered response to the Iran Hostage crisis. We are likely to see Obama actually SIDE with the enemy of the US, given his background and that of his team.

Cedarford likely finds Obama’s abandonment to invasion of Israel (on behalf of Hamas) attractive. It’s why he likes Obama — both have the same enemies: Jews.

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:47 pm 23. Benj:

As Per Wretch “What is ironic is how many moderns, having rejected God as a false consolation and unsophisticated twaddle, seem to believe it is perfectly respectable to pin their hopes on such things as Niebuhrian philosophy to wish away off a foreseeable disaster.”

More incoherence from Wretch the disaster-monger? All obnubliatory cya’ing noted – Wretch implicitly places Michael Gerson (who is the op-ed writer who invoked Obama’s feeling for Niebur) as one of those “moderns” who has rejected God? But Gerson is an evangelical Christian. He’s anything but an echt “modern” sensibility…

Wondering when there will be an attempt to engage those on the Right who are rolling toward Obama. Or at least away from Ms. Palin. Oh – I forgot – there was Wretch’s line on Powell’s endorsement. The general couldn’t be serious about that Muslim kid-soldier in Arlington? Follow the Money! Who’s behind Powell? Min Warrah?, as Edward SAid liked to ask? Wretch is proving to be worthy of fast Eddy. Or Michael Moore locating that pipeline behind the invasion of Afghanistan. Fast Eddy and Moore – that’s the right company for Wretch whose “imagination of disaster” can’t conceive of any political position between a “radical” and a “moderate.” That’s to say he can’t imagine a liberal-minded politician. Not all his fault of course. Not too many prophetic liberal voices in American politics since Bobby K. Still, let’s not let Wretch off the hook too easily. He’s been steered toward Obama’s own case statments dozens of times here. But he ain’t trying to comprehend the difference between a radical and liberal. It’s all about a kiss for the Club – Keep It Simple Stupid!

PS Whiskey – I’ll buy you your favorite brand when O goes for reparations. I’m guessing you’re unaware that he’s spelled out why he would not press for reps in Audacity of Hope. Go look it up Whisk – Unless you want to remain stuck on stupid. On that score, do you recall how certain you were only months ago that Hillary would win? When do you check yourself? Or will just go on in certitude into that good night…

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:52 pm 24. JMH:

Obama the Author is always careful to not overdescribe any scene or character from his novel (working title: The Audacity of Changing Hype?). He knows each individual reader, under the spell of a willing suspension of disbelieve, will fill in whatever details most appeal to that reader. If the author were to slip and provide too many details (say, for instance, in an unguarded moment chatting with a bald plumber), he risks popping the illusion. Gerson hasn’t had his illusion popped yet I guess, he’s just seeing what he wants to see in Obama.

Myself? I live on the purple fringes of deep blue Seattle, and though I’m accosted by the occasional Obamanut with the 10-yard stare that Sigintel describes so well, the ones responding to The One’s mandate to “get in people’s faces”, I’m actually amazed at the general lack of Obamunist yard signs and bumperstickers. I’m wondering if it really is all, I mean ALL OF IT, an illusion. At this point, I won’t be surprised if Obama wins, and I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t manage 45% of the vote.

Oct 22, 2008 - 6:55 pm 25. Charles:

But at least Obama offers the POTENTIAL to pleasantly surprise.

…………..

I think Biden took that off the table with his recent comments that Obama would get a crises within 6 months and people would not like how he reacted to it.

Rush mentioned today that likely Biden had been in on a senate national security briefing recently– and his speech about obama being tested — was as close as he could get to blurting out what he had been told.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:09 pm 26. fred:

The clue, gentleman, is in the abiding and continuing alliance and friendship between Barack Obama and Harvard Prof. Samantha Power. It is rumored that she calls him daily and they discuss matters. And because her alleged forte is foreign policy, and even then one of a certain flavor (she would have made a great oven attendant at Treblinka), we can venture a solid, educated guess what is going on.

Intel estimates are now that in February Iran will have a hydrogen bomb, and already has a a reliable mid-range ballistic missile on which to put the weapon.

I think I have a good idea of the crisis which Biden is referring to, and it is ugly. Biden is asking the Leftist, Jew-hating scum to not be dismayed by Obama’s falling poll numbers when he simultaneously denies Israel help in striking the Iranian facilities and ends the ballistic missile defense shield program.

Back in the late Seventies and through the mid-Eighties, when I was an academic Marxist, I was literally surrounded by other Leftists foaming at the mouth over their hatred of Jews and Israel. I would defend Jews and Israel, on both historical and theological grounds, and almost myself felt so outnumbered I began to understand what it must have been like for the Jewish rebels holed up in Masada surrounded by the legions of Vespasian and Titus.

Watch. c-fudd will jump in and excoriate me for my stupidity of defending Jews and Israel. He’s in the habit of calling me stupid of late.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:12 pm 27. peterike:

In preparation for the coming Obamalypse, I’ve started re-reading Simon Shama’s history of the French Revolution, “Citizens.”

Speaking of Wile E. Coyote moments, the Comte de Segur put it quite nicely at the time: “We stepped out gaily on a carpet of flowers, little imagining the abyss beneath.”

There’s another passage early on in the book that struck me as well. It’s a perfect explication of those upper-crust yuppie whites who’ve tied themselves to Obama’s barge.

The historan seeks in vain for some putative revolutionary class — let us call them the bourgeoisie — thwarted in upward social mobility, and bent on the destruction of the priviledged orders. In 1789 there would indeed be such a group but their most significant and powerful members would come not from outside but from the inside of the nobility and clergy. And they were not the product of an “aristocratic reaction” but its exact opposite: an aristocratic modernization.

I think that captures it brilliantly. What we have with Obama is a revolution of the priviledged classes. They are sick and tired of not quite running everything, and they are damn sure they can do a better job than a yokel like Bush or those ignorant, God-fearing Rethuglicans. (Oh, how Palin must grate on their nerves! My god, Benj probably has more classics on one shelf than Palin has ever even heard of.)

So they’ve joined together in their self-righteous splendor, pumped full of their own penumbras and emanations of greatness, and once and for all they are going to seat themselves on the thrones that belong to them. And why not? They’re richer than the rest of us. They’re better looking. They eat better (and greener!) food, they drink better wine, they drive finer cars, they vacation in all the right places, they can get a table at the French Laundry or Le Bernadin any time they want. They are cultured and witty and they dig Jon Stewart’s humor. Who better to run the world?

It’s time to wash the old orders away and get on with perfecting the human race. I wonder, will Obama change the name of the months? Will his inaguration initiate the Year 1? Is my next birthday going to be in the month of Fructidor?

Nobody saw it coming then, either. Nobody foresaw the guillotine then, either. For in the Dictatorship of Virtue, terror is, by definition, the swift sure hand of The Good at work.

Napoleon had a great zinger he applied to Talleyrand: “a pile of shit in a silk stocking.”

Same old, same old.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:16 pm 28. Iconoclast:

His comments about not participating in the weaponization of space are most disturbing, as well. With the economically-driven shrinkage of Empire, that would be America’s best defense, as he who can strike from space can retaliate against anyone, anywhere.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:22 pm 29. LFMayor:

You folks seem all but convinced of an Obama victory, which makes me think that all of this “polling” has done it’s job. Please remember, there are silent millions in flyover country who don’t get the benefit of time on the microphone, and millions of semi-programmed sheep in the metro areas who will instictively answer “Obama” when asked because they fear the lash of affirmitive action. We are stronger than you know.
I wondering how the foaming, cloth rending and beard pulling crowd is going to look dancing around this great victory pavillion when the final numbers come in and they found they’ve lost. Lash yourselves to the wheel and hold course my friends, we’ll worry about landfall if and when we run aground. Not that I don’t worry about it (I’ve been thinking on it hard, too Fred) but morale is the first thing to check in any survival situation, and we’ve not lost just yet.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:28 pm 30. LFMayor:

P.S. Buy some ammo and canned goods, just in case.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:31 pm 31. Dave:

Well, I wondered when Benj was going to resurface. I’ve missed him. Target-rich opportunities and all that.

About the right rolling away from Palin:

They rolled so far away that the line outside the Henderson Pavilion was only a mile long.
Official estimates were a mere 7000 persons inside and ????? outside.

She also made a whistle stop in Reno and a paltry 2000 or so stopped work long enough
to hear what she had to say before jetting on down to Lost Wages.

Win, lose or draw in 2008, the ‘Cuda will be a factor for quite some time to come.

As a lifelong political pro from Tucson noted, “Johnny McCain, you have given us our party back.”

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:44 pm 32. Dave:

LF MAYOR: Right on sir. As I have said before, the Obamamites are waging an all-out campaign of PSYOP voter suppression. They are trying to make us feel that our votes are futile.

That means either (a) they do not really believe they have this one sewed up or (b) they cannot stand the thought of a clean victory, only a rigged one will give them the
nerve to try to accomplish their incoherent desires.

We vote. We monkey wrench their plans. One way or the other.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:51 pm 33. fred:

Even though I feel discouraged, I will drag my tired butt to the polls after work on November 4th. I never fail to vote in an election, whether it be local or national. And I encourage all I meet who show signs of being of a similar mind to do the same.

In the long run what really worries me is the increasing stupidity and ignorance of citizens, who are the products of an education system that no longer teaches history or about our Constitution. Somehow, this trend has to be reversed, or our national narrative will only survive in the enclaves of those of us who will never let our love for our country die.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:06 pm 34. cedarford:

Jim in Virginia – If Obama wins and a US city is nuked, I expect he will respond by nuking Karachi or Pyongyang. Even though we could easily take out strategic infrastructure and personnel with non- nuclear weapons, Obama will need to show Americans, the Chinese, the Russians, the French, that they better not mess with him.

Jim, get real. Geneva governs conventional warfare. If the Islamoids smoke Tel Aviv or Paris or DC, or the NORKs hit a Japanese city or two – ALL THE RULES ABOUT “PRECIOUS” baby enemy, female enemy, old enemy GO OUT THE WINDOW.
Deterence is established not by the promise of lawyers and strategists agonizing about a near-fetishic love of enemy civilians, and keeping them from harm after nuke bombs slaughter a million or so on our side and another million are casualties of burns and radiation wounding.
It would be from the certainty that Obama would nuke the crap out of Pakistan or the NORKs, to the point of near-extermination of those nations. NOT from a reprisal of a few thousand JDAMs that knock out only pure military targets nowhere near “innocent sweet enemy civilians”.
Holding enemy civilian lives as more precious than American civilian lives is absurd. If you kill “ours” – get ready for lots more of “your’s” to get smoked. That’s how war is.

*****************
Fred – I would defend Jews and Israel, on both historical and theological grounds, and almost myself felt so outnumbered I began to understand what it must have been like for the Jewish rebels holed up in Masada surrounded by the legions of Vespasian and Titus.

Well, Fred, you are dumb in your Christian Zionism.
For starters, you have no clue of the contempt most Jews hold CZs in. At best, your lot are considered useful dupes from American backwoods areas.

Second, your eager ball-licking of Zionists and how you wish to “save them from Obama and (the generally level-headed slightly left of center humanitarian Samantha Power) as some Satanic female Zion-destroyer” is not shared by most Jews, who will vote 70-85% for Obama. Even in Israel, Obama is strongly favored (outside the Fundie and Settler minorities). Not surprising because Israel is a progressive, socialist country until the lot of non-Jews is considered…making it more like Sweden or Belgium than the USA.
Third, you affirm your dumbness by making moronic proclaimations that Iran will have hydrogen bombs ready to launch on missiles in 3 months.
Fourth, you sound dumb by saying Obama will not support an Israeli sneak attack when it is George Bush, under new sane non-Neocon advice from people like Gates, who has said no way the US will be complicit. Bush has denied Israel more JADMs, any refueling tankers, denied US Iraqi bases support to them, and told them to take up the matter of crossing Iraqi air space with the sovereign Iraqi Gov’t.

Sorry Fred, but your “more Right-Wing” than Likud fealty – and your many ridiculous & ignorant statements contrary to the facts, about why job #1 is “saving the Jews” and the need to put US interests secondary to Zionist interests – marks you as rather dumb and easily manipulated.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:08 pm 35. peterike:

Even Lorne Michaels, no righty, had praise for Palin after her SNL appearance. He told Entertainment Weekly:

I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she’s powerful. Her politics aren’t my politics. But you can see that she’s a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she’s had a huge impact. People connect to her.

She’s the real deal, plain and simple. It takes a certain kind of “sophisticated” urban willful ignorance to not get it.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:13 pm 36. Zim:

Obama won’t win, he can’t even hold Penn.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:15 pm 37. peterike:

For you poll watchers, this is interesting because it gives a breakdown of votes by groups.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/Polls.aspx?id=309546869309178

McCain actually winning the 18-24 group! Young single women for Obama 59/26 (give Whiskey a cigar). Jews for Obama at the same rate, 59/23 (a bit less than the Cford prediction).

Many polls have it tighening quite a bit. Given the (I think) inherent Dem bias in most of them, this might mean in the real world McCain could be a point or two ahead.

ACORN to the rescue.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:23 pm 38. fred:

C-Fudd,

You are a low character who struts his anti-Semitic hatred across the weblog world. And everyone knows it, so that when you insult me you put on display the evil that marks your character. The only suitable response that a Christian like me can render to you is to say that I pray that some day you suddenly become aware of your evil and are moved to true repentance of your sins. Your immortal soul is given over to the Father of Lies.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:24 pm 39. outa my league:

Posited: Barrack Obama is qualified to be the President of Kenya and/or the President of Indonesia, but not President of the United States of America.

I will drop the above thesis as soon as a Hawaiian birth certificate for infant Obama is authenicated as genuine by the NRA, by 9-0 decision of the Supreme Court, and by virtue of hell having frozen over.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:27 pm 40. exhelodrvr:

cedarford,
I could see Obama using tactical nukes against military/infrastructure targets if someone used a nuclear weapon on a civilian, but I don’t think he would go beyond that. Too much political pressure not to, which he would succumb to.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:32 pm 41. Alexis:

Either candidate could win. Senator Obama could win it. Senator McCain could win it.

I do think that Senator Obama has raised expectations to an absurdly high level. This suggests to me that there could be rioting in the first week of November irrespective of who actually wins the election. Although the vast majority of Americans are utterly opposed to political violence, all it takes is for the usual 2% to cause problems. And those 2% are mobilized.

P Diddy didn’t need to start the chant “Obama or Die”. He shouldn’t have done it. He really shouldn’t have done it, because as innocent as his chant may sound to some people, it isn’t innocent. It smacks of voter intimidation. I would be surprised if Detroit’s Devil’s Night doesn’t have political overtones this year.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:32 pm 42. Derek:

Obama doesn’t believe anything except his own desire for power.

McCain is similar. George Bush was the same. He won the presidency and didn’t know what to do with it.

His only goal is to build client/dependent groups that will keep him and his successors in power. That is what ’spread the wealth’ means.

However, he will be defined by his handling of an existential crisis. Bush wasn’t a foreign policy wonk, a military leader type. Quite the opposite. But a situation arose, he responded, he was defined. Two situations, 9/11 and Katrina.

Everything Obama does will be about entrenching power.

Oddly enough, what Bush did by winning the war was destroy his constituent base.

Obama won’t make the same mistake. Kennedy used assassination as a foreign policy tool. I can see Obama turning into a ‘rubble doesn’t make trouble’ foreign policy president.

Wouldn’t that work with domestic issues too? We may find out.

Derek

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:35 pm 43. Aristide:

How many of us will be among the 25 million?

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:50 pm 44. Eggplant:

Derek said:

“Obama doesn’t believe anything except his own desire for power. McCain is similar. George Bush was the same.”

Derek then contradicted himself by saying:

“Oddly enough, what Bush did by winning the war was destroy his constituent base.”

George W. Bush was a great President because he was willing to destroy his own contituent political base to pursue the nation’s best interest (He plainly said he would do this shortly after 9/11). Self sacrifice is the difference between a great President and a vile demagogue.

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:07 pm 45. Dave:

Hi Fred: Here I was thinking you were forever stuck at the rank of Neocon Chickenhawk. I am pleased to see that you
have been promoted to Christian Zionist.

Can I be one too? Pretty please with lots of really sweet kosher on it.

PS Anything remind you of the Pelagian heresy?

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:13 pm 46. Joshua:

Obama’s days as the Left’s Messiah are numbered if he wins. He will then transform overnight from their savior to their “prison b**ch”, and they will turn against him the moment he shows any sign of independent volition or centrist sympathies. I would set the over/under at 6 months on when the phrases “President Obama” and “Uncle Tom” start to be used in the same breath by his erstwhile supporters.

What will really be interesting to watch is what becomes of Obama if he loses to McCain, especially if it’s a close loss. Historically Democratic presidential election losers get kicked to the curb, at least as far as subsequent presidential campaigns are concerned. But I strongly suspect there’s a huge bloc of Democrats who won’t quite be willing to let their Messiah go, and will probably blame the Clintons and the PUMAs for Obama’s defeat (which is why Hillary is no shoo-in for the Dem nomination in 2012 even if Obama is out of the picture by then). Not to mention that Obama has raised so much money in this campaign he’s likely to end up with a huge surplus on November 5. That is, a lot of seed money for the next time around.

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:30 pm 47. Fred:

Dave,

You are most welcome into the merry company of Christian Zionists. Many years ago, in what seems another life, I was into Liberation Theology. Thus, I was at one time a Pelagian heretic. But I have since repented of my wicked ways and rejoined the fold of the true faithful.

Pax tecum

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:32 pm 48. dla:

cedarford wrote:Highly doubtful. Both are low-rated leaders that can’t even block Bush’s failed Presidency from setting the national agenda.

Do you live the US?

Congress will pass legistlation and send to Obama for signing. Unless Obama sprouts a backbone, he will sign what Pelosi & Reid send him. Pelosi & Reid will be the leaders.

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:38 pm 49. NahnCee:

Fred, why on earth are you still reading anything Cedarford (or Benj) writes, to know WHAT you’re being called??? Silly boy.

Alexis – agree. I think violence is coming no matter who is elected. The thing is, I wonder if the liberals realize just how far they’ve pushed over the line already to be imitating French Muslim youth and doing a “burn, baby, burn” in the streets? And that includes the same crew as were burning and rioting after the Rodney King verdict; what’d it get them then and what will it get them now?

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:39 pm 50. Dave:

Fred, I have concluded that liberation theology is a complete misnomer.

I say in all seriousness that “enslavement demonology” is closer to the truth.

(I used to listen to Malachi Martin on with Art Bell and that inspired me to read some of his books. Do miss him.)

Also, while most people grasp that Israel could not exist without the US, too few people realize that the opposite is also true.
Were Israel to suddenly get nuked to a cinder,
America could live to tell of that vile incident. However, were Israel to be slowly strangled while Uncle Sam did nothing or even assisted the strangulation, then we to would be doomed. We could not live with ourselves.

Bravest thing Harry Truman ever did was recognize Israel immediately. That gave both countries a fighting chance.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:04 pm 51. buddy larsen:

nahncee, some nice shit –Adidas, plasma screens, microwaves, beer, all kindsa stuff behind them big ole glass winders. i may riot myself but Dripping Springs has mainly bags of feed and bales of alfalfa in the stores and what with the warm autumn extending grazing a truckload of free feed ain’t much worth the trouble.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:08 pm 52. Fred:

Dave,

A lot of people are unaware of the Obama connection with Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi, both jihad supporters and virulent Jew-haters. Obama took courses under Said, whose poisonous influence still lingers in academia, although more scholars are ripping him to shreds – despite the determined efforts of Arab money to silence them.

I hope Israel finds a spine and is brave to the end. And that might shame our people to their senses. Maybe it won’t. I’m not sure that most of our population has any morality any more that would prompt experiences like shame, guilt, and honor.

I think Obama has so many jihad connections and owes so much to Muslim money that he will throw Israel under the bus. American Jews are fools to fall for him, and they will deserve what they get, as will our nation for voting in the bastard into office. The man is vile liar who is lucky enough to get away with his lies, because large swaths of our population swill the lies. Into the muck they go, trying to find the husks to feed their craven clueless condition.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:12 pm 53. trangbang68:

#19 Jim, Your analysis of Clinton is way off. The aspirin factory / camp in Afghanistan was a peashooter nothing against constant provocation by the Hitlers in Headscarves. They laughed at what a weakling he was. See Somalia, WTC 1, Khobar Towers, “The Cole”. Clinton didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to put men in combat. Obama is different. I don’t believe in his cool aloofness ,he can conceive of many reasons to fight anyone. Besides he’s a post-nationalist Citizen of the World.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:18 pm 54. cedarford:

exhelodrvr:
cedarford,
I could see Obama using tactical nukes against military/infrastructure targets if someone used a nuclear weapon on a civilian, but I don’t think he would go beyond that. Too much political pressure not to, which he would succumb to.

Even if it was outside the US, against an ally, all the war plans call for eradicating the enemy’s capacity to strike again. (With the exception of Russia). And terrible reprisal if an ally’s cities are struck.

I don’t think there would be much opposition to terrible and certain retaliation unless people thought genocide was the goal. And leaving half the people alive as a side consequence of destroying their war capacity and economic and educational infrastructure needed to restore war capacity – would be acceptable.

In the US, if our cities were hit, say “bye-bye” to civilian law. You would probably have civilian people – likely adults, not teens – told they would be conscripted against their will to help with the cleanup of several thousand square miles of contaminated land and neighborhoods after 1st Responders got to 25 or 50 REM exposure.

The idea of ACLU Jews or Christian minister “do-gooders” or conscripted Lefties flown in under guard from Seattle to clean up still-smoking DC Metro – being able to object and stop a massive thermonuclear response to end the threat, completely, is outside any ken to the expectations that would be on Obama, or whatever person is left running the country.

The political pressure would not be against nuking “innocent enemy babies”. In fact, the hardest thing might be resisting political pressure to kill ‘em all, nuke Mecca for something the radical Pakis did, or seize their land and resources as reparations.

***************
Fred, if my views are evil, than 189 of 191 countries are evil. As are most Americans, your beloved hero Dubya, and even your Special Friends…on the matter of rejecting a sneak attack on Iran.

The more likely explaination is the bulk of humanity is not evil, but that you are just stupid.

Tell us again about those hydrogen bombs on Iranian missiles ready to go in 3 months…

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:48 pm 55. buddy larsen:

trang, don’t forget the two East African embassies –the one in Nairobi killed embassy staff plus over two hundred Kenyan businesspeople. Some trial reports by LA Times here.

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:53 pm 56. buddy larsen:

“The more likely explaination is the bulk of humanity is not evil, but that you are just stupid.”

LOL –C4, you are without a doubt the funniest nasty bastid on the internet –

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:00 pm 57. Gaffe Prices:

One doesn’t have to be a “Christian Zionist” to see the democratic (and admittedly liberal) state of Israel, not to mention any of the (newly) liberated states with representative governments, oh, such as Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, South Korea etc. as nations worth defending.

Achmademojob has no problem with the mass killing of at least a million sunni arabs in Israel. All to demonstrate to the region that it is Shia islam on the ascendant where sunni islam has failed? He plans to make martyrs of them, I guess. Without their consent.( Hmmm, does one qualify as a “martyr” if one is not actively committed in takfiri, or jihad? just sort of ‘driving while muslim’ when the ol’ incinerating fires of the bomb start to burn? (for another thread… )

Odder still, is the presumption that our presence in Iraq should preclude any defence of Israel.(?) Rhetorically or otherwise. Our presence there has profound influence on the region, and sunni moslems are the first to benefit. (But sadly, not the christians there)

the great thing about our government, is that even at its worst, it does not do anything in the name of religion. Wretchards point is that we become enfeebled as a nation when individuals who serve in government no longer possess the humility to acknowledge their own human fallibility. ubamas doesn’t have a shred of humility, he is just feigning Niebuhrian comtemplativenes such as to further exploit N and any and all aspects of white culture to his own personal advantage. It plays well to the white guilted “agnostic” crowd. (who will believe anything)

Speaking of humility, the best thing that will have ever happened to Ubamas will come (at last) WHEN HE LOSES.

With all due respect, I have my doubts about violence coming no matter who is elected. I am not naive enough to think, however, that it is a not a possibility, I think it goes to the cognitive dissonance between now and the sentimentalized sixties, that Ubamas, in his delusions, thinks he can re-stage, and selectively take the ” best” from. (Whatever that is…) (?)

There will be games on the tube for everyone to watch, and all other sort of distractions that wannabe “activists” will defer to. People are fat and happy. (Or maybe just fat and miserable, like spoiled children pitching a fit.) The times in which we live are not the sort of times of discrimination, nor deprived circumstances for anybody, and neither was the sixties, for that matter, until Johnson dispatched his “social workers” to destroy the black father and rot the family from within. Black families were making their way into the mainstream until deomogogues and criminals tried to finish the job Democrats started. So the romanticized sixties ubamas pines for won’t materialize anyway. So who do they think they are fooling?

And if it does happen then the blame will go straight to the media who ginned up, (oh, I’m sorry), incited the whole thing in the first place. Pre-emptively:(Carville, talk of Reagan style Landslide for the 0ne when the stupid polls say Ubamas already falling in the important states he already lost the first time in Primary elections he stole in Po-dunk states.)(Hillary voters who now know that he stuffed boxes and stole it from her in the Spring.) Etc.

the poll #’s mean that McCain is already 5-10 more points ahead of ‘the phenOmenOn’, once you correct for bias. Ubamas slow decline since April won’t be released to the public until after election night, and his new found has-been status is navel gazed by those who’ll have to get used to the fact that he was over for them starting at about 9:30 pm November 4th.

Niebuhr applies to those who possess about as much political power as their fellow voters and not much else. You know, working people. Niebuhr didn’t write a handbook of political ethics for politicians. They are beyond reach. And Ubamas has his copy of the recitation for that. Ubamas is dishonest, disingenuous, and a manipulative liar in citing that.

However, Many discussions by conservatives and christians address the dilemma of being overwhelmed with the incremental rise in the discrimination they face in an environment where they are, more and more, outnumbered and double teamed by useful idiot zombies. That is what Niebuhr is addressing. The problem between going along to get along, and when (and how) to pick your battles.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:42 pm 58. Gary Rosen:

“The more likely explaination is the bulk of humanity is not evil, but that you are just stupid.”

Buddy, it’s called “projection”.

C-fudd thinks he and his boy Patty are being real clever in saying the Poles and Czechs started WWII, but it’s like blaming Megan’s Law on Megan. Not surprising, though, that they take their ethical cues from NAMBLA.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:47 pm 59. Karen:

I had not heard that Reinhold Niebuhr was one of Obama’s favorite philosophers. And, if not for Wretchard’s post, I probably never would have heard it, because normally I skip anything written by Michael Gerson the very same second I see his byline. But now that I have read this, I’m less inclined to see Obama’s Christianity as strictly a pretense and a little more inclined to think that Obama sees himself as doing “what Jesus would do.” Not only is it his adoring legions of worshipers that are cause for concern – The One himself may have a Messiah complex!

A wikipedia article quotes Obama as saying, “We should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things [hardship and pain]. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction.” He sees we may not be able to make everything hunky-dory for everybody right away, but still we must do everything we can.

There’s your Global Tax on Poverty. Prefer to choose your own charities? Sorry, the State will decide that for you from now on. Get ready for the levy to lift the downtrodden all over the whole wide world. I’m staggering under the weight of it already just thinking about it. Oh if only Obamassiah’s kingdom were not of this world…

As for Gerson’s willingness to entertain the supposition that Obama might just rein in a Democrat-led Congress, well, I’m speechless. If Obama has any ambitions of reconciliation at all, I venture to guess they’ll be focused only on us unregenerate rednecks who must get our minds right and become reconciled to a lower standard of living than that to which we have become accustomed.

Oct 23, 2008 - 12:43 am 60. exhelodrvr:

cedarford,
I agree that if US cities were hit, even Obama would PROBABLY respond in kind, although I would not see it as a guarantee.

But I don’t see the left as having the willpower to do that if it is an allied city. I don’t think that they care that much.

Oct 23, 2008 - 5:35 am 61. Dave:

Karen 59: I’ve little doubt that Obama suffers from Secular Millenarism thinking that he is on the verge of bringing about
an earthly utopia if not paradise.

Underlying all this is what Murray Rothbard
labeled Post-Millenial Existential Pietism,
which translates as man engineering that earthly paradise by eliminating all those who
cannot refrain from sin——that is you and me.

The phrase “humanitarian with a guillotine” is appropriate.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:32 am 62. james wilson:

Given the means and opportunity, Bam will be the end product of utopian leftist dreams. But if the walls of reality close too quickly upon him, it is the left who will recieve an education in the tranformational power of narcissim.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:58 am 63. buddy larsen:

Dave, worthwhile to recall that the guillotine didn’t go to work until the “Reign of Terror” –a mostly (tho not all by any means) Parisian summer activity (some 30,000 enemies of the state lost their heads in a few months)–which took place a year, or maybe two or three (whynot search it, bud, you dumass) after the Revolution took power. This sequence has a message for us i think.

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:01 pm 64. Fletcher Christian:

exhelodrvr; I like to think that if a city in one of your allies, the UK, was hit that we would save the USA the trouble of retaliating for us. Even our pathetic little strategic force is quite capable of turning the top 60 or so enemy cities into a smoking cinder, in such a circumstance. I think that we would. I hope that we would.

Of course, we would be largely doing the job of finishing the 1300-year war, at the same time. I also think that, in such a circumstance, even if the government didn’t do something rather drastic to the fifth column already living here the general populace would.

In fact, it has already started in a small way. I believe that racial attacks on African-descended blacks have greatly reduced, to be replaced by attacks on Pakistanis – who are the main contingent of Moslems here. And small-scale boycotting of Moslem-run businesses has started, too. It’s not as if they made themselves inconspicuous, after all.

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:47 pm 65. George Bruce:

“Not surprising because Israel is a progressive, socialist country….”

I wonder if that will save them.

Jihadist: “Jew, I have come to kill you. That rock told me you were hiding here.”

Jew: “But wait! I am progressive! I am a socialist! I supported Obama!”

Jihadist: “Whack”

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:07 pm 66. George Bruce:

43. Aristide:

“How many of us will be among the 25 million?”

I will keep my head down. I shall practice appearing to be very small and inconsequential.

I wonder if that will save me.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:10 pm 67. Konyok:

buddy,

I would put it that the terror ensued a couple of years after the onset of the revolutionary condition. The clock doesn’t start ticking if Senator Government is elected, it starts when constitutional order breaks down. Hence my discomfort with notions that might tend to accelerate all of that.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:11 pm 68. Roderick Reilly:

We really don’t know which way Obama will go, do we?

Now, I, and others, may engage in dark musings about the influence the radical left will have on an Obama administration, but — at some level — we sound like a parody of those who panicked about Bush (or maybe I should just speak for myself!).

I have no doubt that lefty/liberal follies will accompany an Obama government, but what else? Pragmatism driven by economic realities? I would hope so, but Clinton’s pragmatism was driven as much by having to triangulate with Republicans as it was by his own beliefs. With an all-Democratic rule (like the first two years of Clinton) what will we have?

One thing to keep in mind is that, as much as many of us are alarmed by the behavior of the left, Obama is not going to be a “Hugo Chavez” (I alluded to that in one of my more alarmist musings), but — on the other hand, do we need a Venezuelan-like debacle in the context of American expectations for us to be alarmed?

I will have to work with elements of an Obama administration as part of my job, and will adjust accordingly. Life will go on, and perhaps those on the “right” (”scare quotes” are intentional) will learn to be “tireless community organizers” to facilitate their renaissance.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:25 pm 69. exhelodrvr:

Fletcher,
“I like to think that if a city in one of your allies, the UK, was hit that we would save the USA the trouble of retaliating for us”

I hope so, but there aren’t many nations that could do so.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:41 pm 70. buddy larsen:

Fletcher, yes your post-Thatcher political establishment has been terribly uneven, but the military core was excellent at all-out war just yesterday, in the Falklands. Goose Green was an especially clear statement of martial valor & professionalism. Things can’t change that much, that fast, that that core would fail to be ever ready. Forget that crap with the RN and IRG a few months ago –it was a set-up by a very crafty and patient foe, and was perfectly calculated by the perfectly calculating Persians to create self-disgust in the west. No target of a surprise attack escapes unhurt –it just ain’t in the cards. Round II is what counts.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:22 pm 71. buddy larsen:

Gary, in zombie-world, the Poles and Czechs were responsible for WW2. They were there, in the way, you know, of the men with the plans.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:28 pm 72. buddy larsen:

C4, i enjoy your posts and your finely-tuned rhetoric is a marvel. Maybe someday you’ll turn it on some of the other ethnics that exist in the world we are all in (Germans for one were a real hassle in the century just past), but that’s neither here nor there re this comment –which i’m making in order to object to your use of the word “special”, as in “special friends”.

I hate it, it’s a slap across my face every time i see it, it always takes me back to being about nine years old and discovering my dad’s WW2 books and seeing those photos of “special” gruppen at work on the Eastern Front, and “special” solutions for “special” captive populations, and “special” trains, and “special” camps. That stuff freaked me out so bad i haven’t ever really recovered any blanket trust in man’s default humanity. i know, poor me –but, i just wanted to say my piece –i hate that word used that way. i hate it, it makes me a hater, and i hate that too. That’s my .02 cents worth on the topic.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:50 pm 73. Fletcher Christian:

Buddy, we didn’t do too badly in either Gulf war either, before the politicians took a hand. In the case of the second Gulf war, whether it was justified is rather irrelevant.

I still don’t understand why Bush I decided not to finish the job when he could. Doing so would have saved thousands of Allied lives, at least a million Iraqi ones, and something like a trillion dollars. Perhaps, also, the World Trade Center would still be standing. (Out of respect, I use the American spelling – it’s not your fault you can’t spell simple English )

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:54 pm 74. cedarford:

C4, i enjoy your posts and your finely-tuned rhetoric is a marvel. Maybe someday you’ll turn it on some of the other ethnics that exist in the world we are all in

I do. You have seen my rags on Islamazoids, China, Africa going down the toilet due to people not fit for civilization, Swedes gone effete, Russians and Georgians acting like jerks, the wierd NORKs, Canadian PC idiots, perhaps a post or two on the black underclass or NOLA scum being about as fit to run a city as Angolans are.

It is just Americans have been habituated to any criticism of Jews or Israel being forbidden….and whenever any criticism is noticed it is instantly seen as a violation of the “Immunity Amulet” Jews have claimed only for themselves, and as history’s only “Special Victims”. Thus, all criticism of Israel is instantly condemned as “anti-Semitic”.

Now, my reference to Israel as “Our Special Friend” refers to them as special, outside all the rules and criterion that apply in dimplomacy and in relations affecting interests – that apply to nations we have been close with a lot longer, with which we have fought side-by-side in major wars.

I reject that “Specialness” and separate set of rules Jews insist apply to Israel and themselves, but no other nation or group.

Buddy – i’m making in order to object to your use of the word “special”, as in “special friends”.

I hate it, it’s a slap across my face every time i see it, it always takes me back to being about nine years old and discovering my dad’s WW2 books and seeing those photos of “special” gruppen at work on the Eastern Front, and “special” solutions for “special” captive populations, and “special” trains, and “special” camps. That stuff freaked me out so bad i haven’t ever really recovered any blanket trust in man’s default humanity. i know, poor me –but, i just wanted to say my piece –i hate that word used that way. i hate it, it makes me a hater, and i hate that too. That’s my .02 cents worth on the topic.

Well, Buddy, you make a polite objection. Based on your personal experience and value system – rather than go into self-righteous “How-Dare-You!!” condemnation based on some claimed absolute law of Political Correctness.
But euphemisms are always in play when in the past, lots of people get killed in terror or war. Even “Our Side”, America, likes euphemisms like “target destroyed” rather than “We just torpedoed a Jap troopship with 8,000 people aboard! Yipee! Killed ‘em all, or soon will as sharks and thirst finish off the survivors!”

The Soviet Jews that devised the forced labor system Yagoda used, or the Gulag system – folded their handiwork in euphemisms like “correction of anti-social behavior”, “Pure Air of Siberia corrects psychological imbalances”, opportunity for rehabilitation, “Camp solidarity is vigorously encouraged”, “re-education sessions”, “Gorky Misalevich is unable to be contacted” – nicer words for freezing, starvation, guards and criminals beating the crap out of political prisoners, and that Gorky Misalevich was 5 years gone in a mass grave.

Words of totalitarian democides persist because they have other uses. Just because Gulag administrators used terms like solidarity, liquidation, rehabilitation doesn’t mean those words must be banned along with hundreds of others from other uses.

In present use – Buddy – to be consistent – you would have to also object to Zionists saying Jews have a special right of return, not others that consider it their holy land. To object to current position of nearly everyone that Jerusalem has “special status”.

Or within the US, to object to other uses of “special” as conjuring up Nazi imagery somehow:

Special Ops, Special Olympics, lunch specials, special child, special needs..
Special deal. Special treatment (affirmative action). Have you objected to those terms, Buddy?

Even “special friend” – which, IMO,
refers to the irrational human impulse to term one friend a “special friend” – to which the rules of social behavior that govern other friendships magically don’t apply..and normally is met with resistance by others told they too must consider one person’s “special friend” their new “special friend” as well…

I reject Israel as “Our Special Friend”. It might be yours, but not mine. No different to me, under no set of different rules than other nations we justly consider close to us, yet hold accountable to certain behaviors and rules to remain our friends. Nations like Canada, France, Singapore, Australia….Chile, Kenya.

Oct 23, 2008 - 6:41 pm 75. buddy larsen:

excellent equivocation, C4, sparkling use of English as usual. and i don’t mean to flip it off with a glib one-liner. However. If one genocide is more familiar than another, does it lessen the one? I’m not gonna go into the whys of the familiarity –we all know them, WW2 is still the biggest stage in the human mind, and the then heartland of the First World, in living memory, in the modern world, murdering in a fell swoop the bulk of its intellectual, professional, civic, and arts society, on race/religious grounds, is, i’m sorry, the pivot point of western civ & world history –and this is in no way a de-minimus of Rwanda, Cambodia, or any other horror. And, most importantly to my previous post’s criticism (i guess i should’ve been more explicit), “special” is the word the Nazis used.

As such, to use it in direct attack –if but verbal/intellectual –on the Nazi’s same target, and then to claim that it has no more meaning there, than the general dictionary gives it anywhere and everywhere, is to deny the entire truth of context as a layer of meaning in verbal communication.

Oct 23, 2008 - 8:11 pm 76. fred:

Buddy,

I’m beginning to wonder if C-fudd is really Prof. Samantha Power at Harvard.

Oct 23, 2008 - 8:13 pm 77. buddy larsen:

Fletcher, i sure didn’t mean to ignore GB in the modern ME wars –i guess the splendid performance in the Falklands –coming as it did on the heels of (in fact kicking the door shut on) the west’s miserable, craven 70s, just shines bright as a sort of restoration.

Oct 23, 2008 - 8:22 pm 78. buddy larsen:

fred, ya gotta hand it to him –he sure marshalls his arguments. It’s like a Macedonian Phalanx coming at ya.

Oct 23, 2008 - 8:26 pm 79. fred:

Buddy,

The other thing I contemplated was that c-fudd might even be a Muslim or a Christian Arab from Lebanon. He does use the word “cedar” in his nom-de-guerre, which makes me think of Lebanon. I have read some posts of his where the English grammar slips into constructions that are more typical of a foreigner trying to think in English and not quite carrying out correctly. C-fudd is relentless in attacking Israel, Jews, and Americans like me who support Jews and the State of Israel. The hatred just oozes out, and spills over into open contempt towards me.

And I meant every word I posted, that C-fudd in in serious need of Divine grace and forgiveness. Whoever it is, it seems devoid of love, grace, and honesty. It’s just here to do battle against the Jews and Zionists. Very few Westerners bring that kind of hate nowadays. Even the socialist scum only have a kind of ersatz hate for Jews, because it fits in with their Third World, keffiyeh wearing, rebel cool.

Oct 23, 2008 - 9:10 pm 80. buddy larsen:

Fred, i place him as a Lebanese-descent engineer at Ford Motor Company, between 35 and 40 yras old, and a family man. UAW-symp, accounting for isolationism (wants to force us to walk, ride a hoss, or buy a $200,000 Ford Pinto). Living in fast-circling-the-drain Lib fortress Michigan accounts for dyspeptic mood of gloom, doom, and decay.

Engineering training accounts for rationalized exposition, wielded efficiently via strong I-beam prose construction, Monroe doctrine shocks, fuel-injected current-events ignition harness, being tired (tyred for Fletcher) of Axle of Evil, high-torque cranky Universal Joint shafting, charges of battery, and notoriously unbalanced differential transfer case.

Spiritually tuned to the idea, the theme, the Gospel of Fordness and Acts of Forditity (including founder’s anti-semitism, and yea unto the taking of the Name for the Handle of the Web), based on the revealed liturgy and eschatology of the Ford the First Assembly Line.

Oct 23, 2008 - 10:00 pm 81. Dave:

And besides that, he has to be Fixed Or Repaired Daily lest he be Found On the Road Dead.

And about that $200G Pinto: I’ll bet I can Jew him down any day of the week and twice on the Sabbath. Wonder what he thinks about that Jewish carpenter who passed our way about 21 centuries ago?

At any rate, I think we can let him Passover
us. REjecting my petroleum notions means he won’t have enough gas for a Second Coming.

Oct 23, 2008 - 10:39 pm 82. Gary Rosen:

Buddy – the bottom line is, antisemitism is not about Jews, it’s about antisemites. They cannot get Jooos off their minds, ultimately everything has to revolve around the Joooos, that’s why C-fudd’s posts are always full of gratuitous, off-topic references to Jews. I call it the antisemitic personality disorder.

Maybe something bugs them about the fact that Jews have taken so much shit but still survived. Once I mentioned that Jews have survived antisemites for 4000 years and Fudd went into a hysterical, pants-shitting sissy fit. He just can’t help himself.

Oct 24, 2008 - 12:38 am 83. Gary Rosen:

Fred – I never thought about that, the “Cedar” in C-fudd’s phony name but it would explain a lot. Who, after all, should have more resentment against Jews than Arabs? Israel is a rebuke to them, a tiny nation that has been so successful and productive, a high-tech mecca and center of scientific advancement despite its continually precarious position. The Arabs, by contrast, have taken trillions of dollars from the West in exchange for a mineral they wouldn’t even be able to get out of the ground without Western technology. And they have nothing to show for it except limousines, concubines and terrorism.

Oct 24, 2008 - 1:13 am 84. Wadeusaf:

It is the Neibuhrian nonsense non stance on individual v state (or other large communal entity) that bugs the heck outta me. I does nothing to give a grasp on where “Oh”’s head is/is not.

Given the french disposition post revolting, I would like to know in which basket “Oh”s head, much less my own are likely to drop.

Vive la “Reagan” Revolution

Oct 24, 2008 - 5:14 am 85. buddy larsen:

gary,you’re right –however i have come up with two solutions, which you may have gratis: (1) Jews dumb down –forget the 4000 years of cultivation of habits of the mind, so as to cease & desist being a successful people, or (2) increase numbers from a few million to a few hundred million, preferably ignorant & hostile, so that surrounding enemies will necessarily have to STFU and move on to something else (such as perhaps improving those habits of the mind).

wade, roll the tumbrels –the socialists have just about finished up wrecking the global cooperative (check your news), and the resounding cry “Let Me Eat Cake!” is abroad in the former Land of the Free & Home of the Brave.

Oct 24, 2008 - 7:25 am 86. buddy larsen:

Land of the Fee and Home of the Crave

Oct 24, 2008 - 7:34 am 87. Fred:

Buddy,

You have me in stitches re. #85. LMAO.

Gary,

I agree that this Joooooo obsessed personality-disordered malcontent is projecting and scapegoating. Typical for that personality profile.

But not all Lebanese Christians are hostile towards Jews. Brigitte Gabriel is a case in point. Her stay in an Israeli hospital and her work in Jerusalem changed her completely. BTW, the Maronite Christians around where I live hate the Muslims and are favorable towards Israel.

Ms. Gabriel new exactly what the PLO thugs were like when they took over the parts of Lebanon where they persecuted the Christians. Eventually living the precarious life of a dhimmi forces one to make a decision: get the hell out or resign oneself to being a second-class citizen.

Oct 24, 2008 - 11:21 am 88. buddy larsen:

Land of the Brie and Home of the Fey

Oct 24, 2008 - 1:35 pm 89. RickZ:

buddy larsen: Dave, worthwhile to recall that the guillotine didn’t go to work until the “Reign of Terror” –a mostly (tho not all by any means) Parisian summer activity (some 30,000 enemies of the state lost their heads in a few months)–which took place a year, or maybe two or three (whynot search it, bud, you dumass) after the Revolution took power. This sequence has a message for us i think.

Just a historical correction: Your number guillotined in the French Revolution is erroneously doubled, at least. Why does this matter? Because the Nazis guillotined more people in ‘42-’45, approximately 20,000-25,000, than were guillotined during the entire French Revolution. One of those ‘fun facts’ of history.

Oct 27, 2008 - 4:04 am 90. mnotaro:

Don’t we all want to know about his birth certificate? Don’t we all want to know about the links to the radicals? So many unanswered questions from Obama….he can not be trusted and I keep wondering how long it’s going to take for the lefty illuminati democrats to figure this out. He is not honest about his past and his links to these radicals, but no one is calling him out on it because the MSM is as liberal and lefty as he is and if the story doesn’t build up Obamacamp, then we don’t hear about it!

Oct 27, 2008 - 12:26 pm

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.