75 Comments

1. jch:

“Both sides (and the media naturally) are to blame, in my estimation, because the level of public discourse is attrocious.”

Jeez, no kidding. This cartoon (http://www.thedartmouth.com/comicslgG.php?date=2005-10-14) recently appeared in the daily newspaper of a top ten higher ed institution (Roger’s alma mater, no less!). The student being mocked had been written up the day before in the paper after returning from an internship at the Heritage Foundation (http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005101301050).

If this is any indication of the level of discourse we can expect from the nation’s best and brightest, heaven help us.

Oct 26, 2005 - 6:15 am 2. jch:

Whoops, wrong day (http://www.thedartmouth.com/comicslgG.php?&date=2005-10-14). The cartoon appeared on Friday October 14. Use the Previous Day/Next Day links below the cartoon if you don’t land on the page with the “talking newspaper head.” Sorry.

Oct 26, 2005 - 6:20 am 3. MarkD:

The Internet is no more than a forum. The problem is that political rhetoric has devolved into a relentless attack on anything the other party does or says. The only evidence of bipartisan cooperation in recent history is unity toward defense of pork. Both parties love to spend our money on their friends and buy votes and campaign contributions for themselves.

I loathe both parties and vote for the one least likely to harm me and my family.

Look at issues like immigration. The majority of Americans want our borders controlled. The Democrats will never go for it, because they want the votes, legal or otherwise. The Republicans don’t want it controlled either, because businesses love cheap labor. Result, the government won’t even enforce its own laws and the American people can go to hell if they don’t like it.

Responders: spare me the pro-forma racist/bigot attack. My wife is a legal immigrant, now citizen. I only cite immigration as an example of our political class watching out for themselves at our expense.

Oct 26, 2005 - 6:53 am 4. David Thomson:

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:47 am 5. PJ:

“I loathe both parties and vote for the one least likely to harm me and my family.” This is actually a good thing. Just ask de Toqueville!

Reasoned debate? I’d love to see more debates like Hitchens v Galloway but the left won’t do it. A note of hope though: One of the DVD producers at the Liberty Film Festival mentioned he’s trying to convince Amazon to have a debate section which will carry all the dueling documentaries. I think they would sell like hotcakes. At least the rebuttal to screed like F 9/11 would be visible and available.

Oct 26, 2005 - 8:24 am 6. Silicon valley Jim:

the Republicans slightly in the lead in the opproprobrium derby, my guess in part because they happen to be the ones in power.

And in part because the MSM will report only negative stories about Republicans and spin stories, omit facts, or even outright lie to make Republicans look bad.

Oct 26, 2005 - 8:49 am 7. tefta:

Sorry, the old leftie tactic of “they all do” won’t work. They don’t all do it. Leftwing moonbats in the Democratic party and the media have been relentless in lying, distorting and spinning events to destroy Bush.

The fact the a poll shows about equal distrust for the two parties is a miracle. Those polled have actually been able to see beyond what the media tell them see the truth for themselves.

The blogosphere is less effective than previously because so many have started moving away from center right to where they feel more comfortable, center left with more movement to left easily predicted in the near future.

I guess their concern for security from terrorist attacks isn’t as primary as it was previously because they must know that if the left is successful in destroying Bush, terrorism will be the winner.

The fifth column at the CIA and state department has been keeping the home fires burning for the day when a Democrat returns to the White House and our as foreign policy returns to the Clinton model of appeasement and kowtowing to the uber-currupt UN.

Oct 26, 2005 - 9:47 am 8. jerry:

Roger:

The problem is not our political parties but the electorate itself. We have become a nation of perpetual adolescents who behave like high school cliques. As demostrated by the Meirs flap Consevatives are no more adult in their political behavior then the left. I can’t begin to tell you how angry I am at the childish behavior of my fellow Conservatives over the Miers nomination. After arguing against Ivy League elitism and the President’s right to appoint who he wants, they throw a temper tantrum because she is not life long member of the club. Give me a break.

The Political Parties are a merely a reflection of the electorate. Perhaps the electorate has looked in the mirror and doesn’t like what they see and just like a spoiled teenager they lash out at others rather then reflect on their own shortcomings.

Oct 26, 2005 - 10:02 am 9. scott orrell:

Roger,

Im a 29 year old student at Cal State and if you want to feel pessimistic about the future of political debate, take a tour of the campus and talk to a few students. Liberalism is dead, and all that is left of its once beautiful body are the pale bones of cynicism. Today’s students are not grounded in history nor fed by idealism,instead they live in a solipsistic universe of selfish design that allows them to do what they want without fear of hypocrisy. They believe in nothing and therefore can do anything. It’s frightening and sad, very very sad.

Oct 26, 2005 - 10:35 am 10. Pat Curley:

Inevitably the way you see the world affects what you see as true and what you see as false, not to mention that it affects what you see. If you look at the liberal blogs and the conservative blogs you will quickly see that they are not even covering the same stories.

It’s my impression that the conservative blogs are much more willing to correct mistakes and liberal blogs more willing to propagate them (if they are beneficial to their side), but I’m honest enough to admit that may just be my bias.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the blogs have become more polarized over time; some of that may be just an accident of timing considering how many blogs started around 9-11 when the country itself was more united.

Oct 26, 2005 - 11:27 am 11. dougf:

Today’s students are not grounded in history nor fed by idealism,instead they live in a solipsistic universe of selfish design that allows them to do what they want without fear of hypocrisy. They believe in nothing and therefore can do anything. It’s frightening and sad, very very sad.—Scott O.

And it’s also not infinetely sustainable. History(which no-one cares about anymore) is replete with examples of ‘cultures’ which have decayed and collapsed.

A ‘culture of nothingness’ cannot endure. It is axiomatically an existential dead-end. One can only hope that the malaise is not permanent in the sense of not being resistant to ‘better’ influences, but good case or bad case scenario, this intellectual/ethical morass is surely not permanent. It will go in the relatively near-term; the only question is whether is goes in a great wave of gnashing of teeth.

Oct 26, 2005 - 11:37 am 12. Mark Poling:

“The only evidence of bipartisan cooperation in recent history is unity toward defense of pork.”

– MarkD

Why did the phrase “bread and circuses” start running laps around my brain…

Oct 26, 2005 - 12:10 pm 13. jerry:

Doug:

Modern Europe is a prime example of a society that has adopted the culture of nothingness. Even with out the threat from radical Islam, European culture is dying. In North America, the Liberalism is just another name for this culture and we live on the knife edge of long term existance. Liberalism is the culture of death in a larger sense then say pro-lifers (that’s me) claim. Liberalism worships a kind of cultural entropy that destroys the foundations of the liberal society. The so-called left/right divide in the United States is really all about the dichotomcy between a culture of reason (and I don’t mean Randian libertarianism by reason) and a culture of nihlism. It is another way of saying adult versus adolescent culture.

Oct 26, 2005 - 12:14 pm 14. Bostonian:

I don’t buy the “everyone does it” argument either. It’s too convenient.

There might be an equal amount of *noise* on both sides, but when you look at the details, stark differences emerge.

For instance, let’s talk about lies.

Both sides often claim that the other side is lying. But let’s examine some of the claims.

The Dems say the GOP lied about WMD, quite as if history started on Jan 1, 2001. This is nonsense. Numerous Democrats are on the record as believing the same thing, including Clinton. All the intelligence agencies we talked to thought the same thing. Having bad information (or out-of-date information) does not make you a liar.

Likewise, drawing different conclusions does not make you a liar.

Last summer, the idea of voting for a Republican was completely new to me, so I paid attention to the claims that the GOP lied about this & that. Every time I took a look, the Democrat claims about GOP “lying” just turned out to be utter nonsense. There was simply ZERO to the accusations.

On the other hand, the Democrats openly and publicly lie quite unmistakably, and it happens again and again.

Again, last summer, the Kerry Kampaign website claimed that Bush/Cheney had campaigned on a promise to reduce oil prices by 12 percent (or some figure like that). It was right there on his web site.

Now that would be a rather remarkable promise to make. I googled it, and it is indeed nonsense. (I went so far as to email the Kampaign to ask for a link to support this claim, and got nothing but Kerry spam for my troubles.)

So yes, there are plenty of claims of lies and those might be equally distributed, but that does not mean that the lies themselves are equally distributed.

***

And no, I don’t really believe that the GOP is inherently more virtuous. It is the one-sidedness of the press that requires the GOP to be better behaved these days.

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:00 pm 15. Bostonian:

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:04 pm 16. Rick Ballard:

Mark,

I don’t think there is a call for bread and circuses from the electorate. The pols (Rep and Dem) are just engaged in a reactionary response of the “We’re pols and spending is what we do variety.” To the contrary – I would say that the electorate is fairly sick of spending increases (for the moment) and we’re seeing some indication of their disgust in the polling (and in Congressional reaction to the polling).

I tend to separate the current divisiveness and strong partisanship from policy debate. There is a real transition in party dominance underway and history does not provide many examples of gracious cession on the part of the party leaving power – nor on the part of the party acceding to power. It’s going to take a few more elections affirming the transition before rank partisanship settles down because it has been a gradual change rather than a watershed change like ‘32-’34.

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:06 pm 17. Inspector Callahan:

I guess I’m just not seeing both sides do it.

The Clinton bashing went out of vogue once he left office. Most of us didn’t want to hear from him anymore (of course, that doesn’t stop Bill Clinton from finding the spotlight).

Bush said he was going to “Set a new tone” in Washington. When the media ask insanely biased questions of the press secretary, a sharp retort is never given back. When Democrats cry, “There was no WMD; Bush is a liar”, Bush doesn’t point out that those same Democrats were saying the same thing. These are just 2 examples.

How are the current Republicans guilty of “Clinton Bashing”? What members of Congress, or the Administration, are engaging in this?

The Republicans won’t even push their own message. That’s been their main problem since 43 took office.

TV (Harry)

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:12 pm 18. AisA:

Jerry, what do you mean by “randian libertarianism” as a species of reason? Rand’s philosophy has nothing to do with libertarianism. In fact, Rand denounced the amorality of libertarianism.

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:13 pm 19. jerry:

AisA:

Modern [neo]Libertarians usually attribute their intellectual heritage to Ayn Rand. So I mean it in that sense.

However, If you know anything about her personal life, Rand was quite openly selfish and thoroughly amoral. I have never read any anti-Libertarian sentiments expressed by Rand although that doesn’t mean that she didn’t make them. I can’t imagine her attacking von Hayek as being amoral because he had a very well developed set of conventional moral attitudes. In addition, I also can’t see her taking issue with folks like Milton Friedman on so-called victimless crimes, particularly sexual activity given that she was quite the libertine herself. She was actually very adolescent in her behavior. I read somewhere that she was at Von Hayek’s house for dinner and she burst into tears saying that he treated her like a spoiled Jewish girl. Von Hayek told her but Ayn, you are a spoiled Jewish girl.

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:38 pm 20. Terrye:

Like Jerry I have been disgusted with the conservative attacks on Miers and the president.

A nice knife in the back there and great timing too.

I think that are dividing into ever smaller little groups. In other words we are all part of special interest groups constantly competing with each other and yes, acting like bad children..cut spending [so long as it does not effect me] let the president have his nominee [so long as I approve] stand up against terrorists [so long as it does not require fighting] and on and on.

We should accept the fact that with a population as large and diverse as ours we need to work together. Partisans just want to fight all the time and that is annoying to most people who actually prefer consensus.

If the Iraqis can do it, surely we can.

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:50 pm 21. Terrye:

people are dividing I should say.

Oct 26, 2005 - 1:52 pm 22. DanM:

What was once absurd is now sublime…..

Sorry, can’t make the synapse fire on the origin of that thought, but I believe it had something to do with the eventual decay and destruction of civilization.

Are we not talking about absurdity? We all know that this political climate is an absurdity looking for a majority to call it for what it is. Do you trust anyone enough to speak for you? Not to be nihilistic, I don’t believe that we should destroy it to build it back up, but what have we done here?

Academia has fallen down the rabbit hole in a mere 2 generations – yes, I blame us baby-boomers. See Victor Davis Hanson’s latest .

The Judicial system can’t decide whether there really is “The Law” or not (Antonin Scalia reviewing “Law’s Quandry” by Steven Smith – Institute for Law and Philosophy, Univ. of San Diego) in First Things.

The Legislative branch – well, what can you say about Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy, et al? Yes, there definitely are Republicans in that mosh-pit of wisdom. Tom Delay is the only one I can think of now.. Tom? Why did you have to Gerrymander the whole state? Is this all a game to see that you have the moxie to do what you want in YOUR state? Enough on this, I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here.

The Executive branch is constantly under fire from the Press, the opposition and NOW it’s own party. You trust George to send our treasure into harms way, but not to appoint a Supreme Court justice? Would you drop the curtain a second Republicans and let us see what’s behind it? George has his faults, but wishy-washy he is not.

I exclude the “PRess” (caps intended) in my diatribe because, well I don’t want this to become a – diatribe…

The moonbats will always be there (on both sides) the issue is that they are perceived as the base for the Democrats… The Republicans are spending like they just won the Lottery…. So, was it really just to seize power, or were there some PRINCIPALS that needed to be fought for? (Sorry for the yell).

Who lost the reins here? We did, due to our utter and complete subservience to the almighty “gummit”.

jerry, I’m arguing your point for you here, not as eloquent as you, but wanted to back your thesis in my own way.

et tu publicus?

Oct 26, 2005 - 2:39 pm 23. Knucklehead:

Jerry,

I think you may be absolutely correct. We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.

Did anyone go look at the questions asked? Who answers that drivel?

Please tell me whether you agree or disagree that George W. Bush has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.

Does anyone ask, prior to a dimwitted question like that, if the respondant has given 5 minutes of thought to what “personality and leadership qualities a president should have”? Name three within five seconds!

These polls are tripe – tripe made from mad cow.

Can anyone tell me why a sane person would even consider trying to be “popular” via poll results?

Regardless of how you think the Senate should vote, would you say you are pleased or disappointed with George W. Bush

Oct 26, 2005 - 2:45 pm 24. Coisty:

A question to long time American political junkies: Has political discourse always been so partisan or has cable news made it worse?

Oct 26, 2005 - 3:04 pm 25. thedragonflies:

I often wonder what it is going to take to end the incredible bile of our political discourse. I read a great book a few years back – “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe. They forecast a cultural turning point that would happen around now that would end the era that we were in at the time – The Culture Wars – and begin a new cultural era – A Crisis.

I thought that 9/11/2001 was a sufficient crisis to end the culture wars, but it wasn’t. They may have intensified. I think we will know when the entire country understands that we are in a crisis when the culture wars are seen as too trivial for people to care about. Unfortunately, that may be a crisis so severe that even 9/11 will pale in comparison.

I hope and pray that the country can come together in the understanding of the crisis we, and the world, are in with something less than mass slaughter of Americans, or any others of Western Civilization. But, I wonder.

Oct 26, 2005 - 4:06 pm 26. Terrye:

Coisty:

Sometimes I think it has made it worse, because we are seeing the worse of each other far too much.

But then again we have gone through this kind of thing before.

Oct 26, 2005 - 4:38 pm 27. Terrye:

knucklehead:

The only rational answer to some of those questions, is how the hell do I know?

I do think that if instead of Miers Bush had come up with some well known strict constructionist designed to drive the Democrats to distraction he would just have another bunch of people mad at him.

6 of 1, half a dozen of another.

Oct 26, 2005 - 4:42 pm 28. richard mcenroe:

The Republicans slightly in the lead because… um… because no one can name ONE SINGLE THING the Democrats have done or seriously proposed doing since the 2004 election? Really, can anyone mention one major piece of legislation offered by the Democratic side of the house or Congress in the last going on two years? Passed or not?

Oct 26, 2005 - 5:26 pm 29. Smacko:

I think the internet has given voice to the extremes of right and left and it seems that the more moderate of each side are drowned out.

These extremes were always there, but not as well heard.

Oct 26, 2005 - 5:31 pm 30. thibaud:

A question to long time American political junkies: Has political discourse always been so partisan or has cable news made it worse?

It’s worse today than at any time in the last half century (with the possible exception of Nixon’s second term). The best point of comparison is the Reagan era, when we also had a supposed “cowboy” “warmonger” “dunce” in the White House. Reagan was hated by the bien-pensants and the left-lib academics, but even during all the acrimony and media frenzies over Star Wars, ketchup-is-a-vegetable, breaking the controllers’ strike, “we’ll know in about 35 years whether MLK was a communist” there was never the level of seething rage– there’s no other word for it– that characterizes GW Bush’s haters in the media and the country at large.

The key difference IMHO is that Reagan was never viewed as illegitimate. An “amiable dunce”, but never described as having “stolen” the election. There was a seminar at U Michigan in the early ’80’s taught by a lefty journeyman prof that tried to compare Reagan’s America to Hitler’s Germany, but few others took the comparison seriously enough to make Reagan=Hitler into a major media meme. Compare that to “Chimpy Bushitler” and multiple media figures joking or perhaps not joking about how they’d like to put a bullet in W’s neck. This is another order of hatred altogether. I don’t recall anyone ever muttering about how it was necessary to take out the president– perhaps because a loony actually did come within a hair’s breadth of doing so.

What accounts for the change? Speaking as one who was an early and strong supporter of Bill Clinton and the DLC in 1990-1991, I think there’s certainly a great deal of unresolved bitterness among Clinton-Gore supporters about a) the destruction of the first Democratic second-termer since Truman over a sexual indiscretion, and b) an election that, arguably, required the intervention of James Baker to put a mediocre daddy’s boy like Dubya over the top. (Notice how conservatives now are pooh-poohing the perjury and obstruction of justice charges in the Rove case. Funny how power changes one’s perspective on the law.)

So you can attribute much of the anti-Bush venom– not all, perhaps not most, but without question a great deal of the sensible, New Republic and center-left’s hostility– to a desire to payback the right for its savaging of Clinton and for the SCOTUS chicanery with the 2000 election. The war is only the icing on the cake. Monicagate and Florida signalled the beginning of the Permanent War.

FWIW, I think Gore did the nation a huge disservice by challenging the election results and telling black voters that their votes “didn’t count”, but seriously, put yourself in his shoes. Imagine it’s Nov 2008, and that George Allen wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college vote to Hillary, and that SCOTUS determines that there be no recount in Arizona, which was supposedly won by Hillary. How would REpublicans feel? I can guarantee you that the radio shows and the internet would burn with charges of theft of the sort hurled at W these past five years. Of course this would happen; we saw this level of frothing hatred during the black helicopter and Who killed Vince Foster phases of right-wing mania during the last decade.

What’s the way forward? Unfortunately, I don’t see any chance for progress until the nation is rid of both the Clintons and the Bushes. I think we’d had enough of both those families’ involvement in politics, thank you. Time to, er, move on.

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:22 pm 31. TomTom:

The Republican side is coming apart because of dashed hopes. W has squandered his vaunted political capital, has utterly p**sed it away. Reminds me of the twilight of GHW’s term: raised taxes, Souter, abysmally incomplete job in Iraq. Son has not learned nearly enough from GHW’s errors. We have uncontrolled borders, obscene pork, prescription drugs, and Mier. And an used veto power.

The Dems are proving to be effective Sampsons in destroying the temple, aided by the MSM and academe, two high grounds held securely, and peculiar Repub passivity. It’s not “six of one, half-dozen t’other”. The Dems are our internal Palestinian-equivalents, but the Repubs are not Israelis. The political future for us Americans has turned a distinct gray, and the light at the end of the tunnel is faint and fainter.

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:25 pm 32. thibaud:

Re the Reagan-W comparison and “illegitimacy”, note that Reagan came into office on the wave of the biggest landslide victory since 1932. Reagan’s opponent, the incumbent president Jimmy Carter, had failed utterly and totally to offer Americans anything like competent economic management or a coherent, intelligent national security policy. Inflation in early 1980 was IIRC 13%. Unemployment was at 9%. In Detroit, the preeminent example of “Reagan Democrat” territory (ie the blue-collar Dems who, disgusted with Carter, “took the walk” to vote for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in their lives), unemployment in 1980 was 25%. There was utterly no question in anyone’s mind that the nation had clearly expressed a preference for the president, and there was little question that he had a mandate to chart a different course.

And that mandate was crystal clear, because Reagan’s platform was crystal clear: smaller government and a robust challenge, from Nicaragua to central Europe to the far east, to halt and even rollback an expansionist Soviet Union.

Bush had no such clear mandate in 2000 because it’s not clear what, aside from an aggressive, pre-emptive approach to rogue states and islamist terrorists, the man stands for. Last November, what was it, exactly, that the public granted Bush authority to do? Privatize Social Security? Doubt it. Shrink government? Well, Bush pretty obviously wishes to do the exact opposite, and at a far faster rate than his predecessor did (and without even the excuse of a Democrat-controlled Congress).

I suspect that if Bush had been speaking coherently and clearly for 10+ years about the dangers of islamist fascism and rogue states– as Reagan had spoken clearly for nearly two decades about the dangers of Soviet expansion and statism domestically– then there would be today more respect for Bush, and a bit less of the maniacal hatred of him as an illegitimate poseur. My $0.02.

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:39 pm 33. thibaud:

Where exactly did Bush get his “political capital”? True, he won last November by 3 million votes, and most of those votes came from Democrats who in all likelihood did not vote for him in 2000. In 2004 Bush increased his take among hispanics by ca 800,000 votes and also took perhaps 1-1.5 million national security Dems who voted for Gore in 2000. The only thing one can conclude from the switch among these voters was that Bush had a mandate to carry on the war in Iraq. Perhaps the hispanics also feared gay marriage, but you can’t ascribe such fears to the 100,000 Gore voters in New York City who switched to Bush in ‘04 or the ca. 200,000 Dade and Broward FLorida Gore voters who did likewise.

Bush has political capital in the foreign realm. He has no capital in the domestic realm, as the Social Security and now the Katrina reconstruction debacles clearly show. No capital + no principles = disaster. That said, I’m probably one of the few Bush voters who is neither surprised nor terribly saddened by the latest twists and turns downward of the Bush admin. I was a single-issue voter last fall, and I got the result I voted for: Iraq is moving forward and Bush is staying the course there. Bravo. There’s not a single serious, likely contender for the White House in 2008 in either party who opposes staying the course in Iraq. All else is secondary, and will be righted anyway in 2008. If not in 2006.

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:47 pm 34. Paul:

“a) the destruction of the first Democratic second-termer since Truman over a sexual indiscretion”.

Yeah, right…

http://emporium.turnpike.net/P/ProRev/wwstats.htm

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:52 pm 35. thibaud:

The source of the poison today is not so much Republicans vs Democrats– there are plenty of old-fashioned Taftite Repubs who loathe the neocons and have severe doubts about the Iraq War, and plenty of liberal internationalist Dems who support the Iraq War– as the presence of two personalities who, factually or otherwise, represent each side’s darkest fears about the other. To the Republican mind, Hillary represents a sinister, devious cabal intent on sinking the federal government’s mudhooks into every facet of life. To the Democratic mind, W represents a sinister, devious cabal intent on establishing a theocracy run for the benefit of Halliburton.

The only way to disabuse each side of the above is for new faces to step up and push the Clintons and Bushes out of the public eye. Here’s hoping we see Giuliani vs Edwards in 2008.

Oct 26, 2005 - 7:57 pm 36. Luther McLeod:

thibaud

A tad wined for much detail. But “I was a single-issue voter last fall, and I got the result I voted for: Iraq is moving forward and Bush is staying the course there. Bravo.”

After all else, you summed it up. Spine over gelatinous matter. This country had to stand up, show that we were two footed creatures. Such a primal basic thing, but one has to demonstrate now and again. Defense (or offense) wins my vote, until the conditions we face, change. All else is secondary.

Oct 26, 2005 - 8:01 pm 37. Terrye:

I don’t think Bush pissed anything away.

Blaming presidents for hurricanes is a new twist.

When I was young presidents were not expected to take personal control of everything all the time.

People just did not look at things that way.

I think the right wing has done what is always does when Republicans win…. they start acting like the run the place and piss a bunch of centrists off and then run the risk of handing the next election to the Democrats.

And jerry is right, people bitch a lot but they are the problem. We get the government we deserve.

How many people do we know that are willing to sacrifice to pay for the deficit? Hell no, it is the other guy’s problem.

And the fanatics on the Miers issue are starting to sound the like Kos Kids out there raising money to smear the woman, parsing speeches and taking statements out of context in an effor to prove to America that Harriet Miers, evangelical Christian is actually a [gasp] Liberal!!!!!

They are totally oblivious to the fact that they are starting to look seriously weird to the moderates. Without the center right they will not have a shot at winning the White House which means they can forget SCOTUS nominations.

Oct 26, 2005 - 8:23 pm 38. Steven Mitchell:

The garbage being flung today is no worse (in context) than what happened in most of the elections from John Adams to Martin Van Buren. Go read some of the pamphlets some time.

Part of the Bush success has been *because* he does not respond. The garbage hurts, but neither party in a garbage fight comes out smelling very good, especially when bystanders get caught in the crossfire. Sure, he has to take a lot. But you don’t get the positive rep without taking the hits.

As for Congress-critters being cowards, that is one you can put on the public. No truly good deed goes unpunished, in that venue.

Oct 26, 2005 - 8:55 pm 39. Coisty:

I should point out as a foreigner – British and Canadian – that political discourse in the parts of the world I’m more familiar with isn’t any more intelligent than it is in the US. True, neither the UK nor Canada has the same knee-jerk partisanship as you do, but they both have something just as bad (perhaps worse), namely consensual (ie, conformist) democracy.

In Canada, where I currently reside, serious political discourse is barely existent. Even when the vast majority of the population supports a particular policy – capital punishment or immigration control – no one connected to a respectable political party will even consider rocking the boat and discussing such things. Conforming to the elitist agenda is more important than anything else.

USA-style partisanship, though very annoying, is probably better than the conformism we have in Canada. But that’s only true if the two political party elites have substantive disagreements on key issues. I’m not so sure that is the case.

Oct 26, 2005 - 9:51 pm 40. Syl:

Okay, I’m late to the party again. I have a lot of thoughts on this and wrote them as I was reading. But I’ve decided to make it as simple as I can…

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH OUR SYSTEM.

And it’s not falling apart, nor being taken over by monsters with different views, nor are we being destroyed from within by too much partisanship.

These are hard times and a healthy polity will have various opinions and come to different conclusions about what should be done. And because there is a certain level of danger from outside, every issue takes on a greater importance. And we yell louder, because it really matters.

The constant noise is uncomfortable but I think the noise is a perfectly natural reaction of a healthy democracy that is confronting a complex world. A polity that is awakening to the very existence of this complex world.

We are the noisiest country on the planet now, we are also the healthiest, the most informed, the one with the most varied opinons, and we care deeply about our role in the world.

Oct 26, 2005 - 11:20 pm 41. lindenen:

Peggy Noonan has an article in today’s OpinionJournal which imo nails the feeling a lot of people are getting. When I look at her article, I realize that it seems as if not just the Twin Towers that collapsed on 9/11, but a lot of institutions in which we previously placed our faith.

Oct 27, 2005 - 12:07 am 42. Syl:

Terrye, as usual, hones in on a reality with just a few words:

“I think the right wing has done what it always does when Republicans win…. they start acting like they run the place and piss a bunch of centrists off and then run the risk of handing the next election to the Democrats.”

It’s the factions in the GOP turning against Bush that are pissing me off. Not Bush. Not Bush’s domestic policies. I voted for Bush, not Glenn Reynolds. In fact I fired off a note to him the other day which was as close to a ‘hate mail’ as anyone could ever expect from me.

I’m pissed at the anti-Miers faction, for the same reason Terrye and Jerry are. I’m also pissed at the Pork Busters campaign. Not that I think pork is good (well, I LOVE pork, but not that kind) but the hubris and timing is piss poor. It’s a piling on. It’s the blogosphere as an interest group that’s drunk with power.

Besides, I believe pork is an essential element in our democractic process. So sue me. Take that bridge to nowhere in Alaska (please). That’s between the state of Alaska and its elected senator. It’s not my affair. Instead of whining at the senate, explain to the American public why it isn’t a good idea to demand so much money from the federal government. It’s not the fault of Congress, it’s the people who elect them. But if that’s what the people want, then so be it!!

It’s none of Glenn Reynolds’ business except as a citizen trying to convince other citizens not to vote for pork. (I didn’t mention any of this to him. I confined my snarky remarks to Miers.)

Granted, Reynolds did call on citizens of all states to call on their senators. So he’s off the hook, I guess. But blaming congress for doing its job isn’t my idea of a winning proposition.

The immigration issue, on the other hand, is bi-partisan. But the Dems are allowing the Reps to make the arguments and shout the criticisms because it’s bad for Bush to have his own party against him.

To me, and most others here, Bush’s foreign policy is solid. Where we differ is in his domestic policies. I’d rather have a more socially liberal, fiscally conservative president and I voted for the opposite. (Anyone who thinks ‘compassionate conservatism’ ever had anything to do with fiscal responsibility is kidding themselves. Bush was up front so you knew what you were getting.)

But, honest to god, I really don’t care that much either way about government spending. Keep the economy rolling and I’m satisfied. And social issues go back and forth, so I put that as less of a priority.

Okay, all of the above only illustrates this individual citizen’s opinion and should be taken as such. A citizen raising her voice. One voice in this utterly wonderful democracy of ours.

Oct 27, 2005 - 12:11 am 43. Syl:

lindenen

I usually love reading Peggy Noonan. But I got turned off by a kind of ‘woe is me’ attitude. The malaise is her. Not us.

Maybe she needs some chocolate.

Oct 27, 2005 - 12:16 am 44. HA:

Syl,

Noonan is right on. The wheels ARE falling off the cart. And it is no accident, but rather by design:

http://www.policyreview.org/dec00/Fonte.html

The goal of the Gramsian Marxist culture war is to have the society fall apart so that it can be rebuilt in the Euro-Marxist mold. Noonan’s malaise is justified because the Marxists are winning.

Oct 27, 2005 - 4:27 am 45. Terrye:

Syl:

Hell I stopped even looking at instapundit.

preach preach preach.

I think the attacks on Miers are a disgrace.

Now the blogs have gotten hold of an old speech she gave in front of a womans group years and years ago and they are having a fit because she said [brace yourself] “self determination”. Which of couse means she is a liberal Democrat who supports abortion on demand and the sky is falling the sky is falling. I guess self deteremination is a bad thing, who knew?

Oh yes and the syntax is bad and yadayada and what did she mean by that thing about terrorists and anti abortion demonstrators was that what she really thinks or what? and on and on and on…get the rope and string her up.

I have had enough of pissy conservative opeds for the time being. Read one, read em all.

Now comes the ad campaign. No doubt there will be future ads using comments taken out of context. A good old fasioned smear campaign. Don’t it make you proud?

For hysterical finger pointing Kos ain’t got nothin on these people.

For instance, they say they want to let the people decide about abortion. Fine, but they had better realize that while many people would support certain restrictions on abortion most people do not want to see it crminalized and if that is what is driving a lot of this ranting and raving, they will lose.

Oct 27, 2005 - 4:42 am 46. Terrye:

HA:

Society is not falling apart.

I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s in Oklahoma.

I remember race riots and the civil rights movement and the war in Viet Nam.

I remember the drills in school for what do in case of a nuclear attack. [which was of course kiss you a** good bye]

My grandparents lost their farm in the dust bowl and had to go live in migrant camps in California and pick fruit to survive. I grew up hearing stories about hunger and loss and poverty.

Nothing that people are going through in this country today can compare to the loss and fear and tragedy of those days.

Today we have a lot of ego driven conservatives who are pissed off they can not always have their way all the time no matter what and a lot of out of touch lefties who can’t decide if the enemy is Saddam or Bush.

Neither extreme represents most people.

Oct 27, 2005 - 4:50 am 47. AisA:

However, If you know anything about her personal life, Rand was quite openly selfish and thoroughly amoral.

______________________________________________

Jerry, this is a falsehood. It is true that Rand advocates rational self-interest (which is not at all what people normally consider “selfish” behavior), but it is false to say that she was amoral. She developed a complete moral system and defined the virtues of rationality, productiveness, pride, justice, honesty and integrity. This moral system is illustrated in her novels Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, We the Living and in the numerous non-fiction works such as Capitalism the Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness. Have you studied any of these works?

______________________________________________

She was actually very adolescent in her behavior. I read somewhere that she was at Von Hayek’s house for dinner and she burst into tears saying that he treated her like a spoiled Jewish girl. Von Hayek told her but Ayn, you are a spoiled Jewish girl.

________________________________________________

This is also false, just one of many smears and lies spread about Ayn Rand. But don’t take my word for it. Read the book, “Letters of Ayn Rand”, which is compilation of all her correspondence over some 50 years. It includes exchanges with prominent philosophers, politicians like Goldwater and Hollywood figures such as Robert Stack and Cecile B. DeMille as well as countless letters to and from fans and critics. Read Rand’s letters,and then judge for yourself whether they reveal someone “selfish” (in the conventional sense of having no concern with the needs or feelings of others); see if the letters paint the picture of an immature or amoral person. I think you will conclude otherwise.

Oct 27, 2005 - 5:08 am 48. David Thomson:

Oct 27, 2005 - 6:24 am 49. Syl:

Well, Miers is no longer a problem for the Republicans. She has withdrawn her nomination.

My prediction is that Bush is going to choose whomever he wants, and it won’t necessarily be a woman or a minority. Or even on the base/pundit class short list.

If there’s sniping about the next one he’ll just say there’s no way to please you and shrug off all criticisms. And he’ll be right.

And all of you had better be prepared. You know who you are. Don’t misunderestimate Bush.

BTW, Fitzgerald’s office announced there will be no announcements today.

Oct 27, 2005 - 6:32 am 50. Syl:

HA

I’m aware of all that. But what those forces are not counting on is pushback. Hard pushback.

The wheels aren’t coming off, but the cart is getting some of its wood replaced, a new paint job, and a type of nails nobody has ever heard of before.

As long as we have free speech and use it, we’ll be fine.

Oct 27, 2005 - 6:38 am 51. jerry:

David:

Thanks for correcting me. I kept thinking Mies Van der Rohe and knew that couldn’t be right so I assume it must have ben von Hayek.

Oct 27, 2005 - 7:30 am 52. thibaud:

And all of you had better be prepared. You know who you are. Don’t misunderestimate Bush

It seems that the biggest difference between the hardcore Bush partisans and the rest of us is the willingness of people like Syl to back Bush even when he is manifestly wrong. I changed my mind about Miers when information surfaced that Miers was Bush’s consigliere in Dallas during the 1990’s– one of what’s known as W’s “mother hens,” the strong older women who formed a protective ring around young George to control damage arising from his various shenanignans– drunk driving raps, Harken Energy etc. That’s the subtext here: Bush is seeking to place a loyal ally of the clan on the Court as a way of protecting his admin’s legacy. The nomination stinks. It’s perhaps less blatant than Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, but it’s wrong nonetheless, and needs to be undone.

Terrye,

It’s Bush’s handling of Katrina reconstruction funding that stinks. There’s no need for such a costly and wasteful bailout. I see also that the Labor Dept’s Davis-Bacon rules are back in place, guaranteeing that construction costs will spiral out of control. How many billions will be siphoned off by Louisiana’s looters?

Oct 27, 2005 - 7:50 am 53. thibaud:

Miers withdraws. Does Bush realize how lucky he is to have been spared the consequences of his foolish and, frankly, rotten little stunt?

Bush’s stubbornness is his greatest strength (as in refusing to talk to Arafat nad refusing to cut and run from Iraq) and his greatest weakness (as in persisting in nominating his personal lawyer despite the obvious conflict it presents). Hubris always works that way.

Oct 27, 2005 - 8:01 am 54. dougf:

Take that bridge to nowhere in Alaska (please). That’s between the state of Alaska and its elected senator.–Syl

Would this be in the same sense that ‘corruption’ in many 3rd world dysfunctional ‘countries’ is merely between the corrupt and the corrupters?

I have no problem with that USELESS waste of SOCIETY’S resources being a matter between ‘Alaska and its elected Senator’. In fact that is entirely where is should be. Let Alaska pay for its own wastefulness. Why should someone in San Diego pay for a useless expense, simply because ‘ log-rolling is the way the corrupt work in Washington?

The current aptmosphere in Washington reminds me of that old line about falling off a high building and commenting on the experience from halfway down—– Well, I’m OK so far.

When corruption and incompetence are considered just part of the game, is there any reasonable expectation that anything will ever get better? Is it not in fact likely to get progressively WORSE?

So we bend the accounting rules a triffle here and there? Who cares and everyone does it,don’t they? Well yesterday we did THAT so today why can’t we do THIS ? Tomorrow let’s just make up stuff; who cares anyway,it’s not my money? Hmm, that didn’t work out very well as I recall, but perhaps Government Stupidity is subject to a different set of consequences.

How being against WASTE can be a WRONG position is a mystery to me. I clearly need more nuance in the worst possible way.

Oct 27, 2005 - 8:52 am 55. Paul:

I think this essay by VDH helps to bolster HA’s case.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson102505.html

Every lefty I meet, and I meet lots, somewhere in the conversation runs down America. The bulk of the people I work with are Black and their views on “racist” America are increasingly bitter and hostile, fanned by the media and the poverty pimps.

No doubt those who live in much of the interior see a different picture than those of us in the urban coastal areas, but the fact is that the country is pretty evenly divided between “Tocquevillians” and those who have absorbed and internalized, often unwittingly, Gramscian cultural Marxist ideology. Who knows how long it will remain 50-50 with our schools and media actively under the sway of the Gramscians.

Oct 27, 2005 - 9:50 am 56. Steven Mitchell:

“Who knows how long it will remain 50-50 with our schools and media actively under the sway of the Gramscians.”

In my opinion, we have already turned the corner. As long as the media and school control was in doubt, the Gramscians pretended to be reasonable, moderate people. Oh, occasionally they would let something slip, but that same control would help cover it up. As they have solidified their control, however, they have lost this disciplined pretense–ultimately to their undoing.

Home schooling is figurately “taking off”. Various school options get more and more heat and light, despite a frantic rearguard action by the Gramscians in the courts. The media consistently has less credibility in Congress, even as it tries to drag government down.

The Gramsicans were always about indoctrination instead of convincing people. However slow they are to come around, such tactics have not worked on Americans in the long run. It’s sad that we’ll probably have two major American institutions totally trashed before it all sorts itself out. But we will rebuild them as something better than they were.

Oct 27, 2005 - 10:05 am 57. thibaud:

Home schooling is bad medicine, and will not result in any real reform of the schools. Where the home schooler parents are competent teachers who have tons of free time to devote to their kids’ lessons, there’s the possibility of an adequate education, but the opposite is probably more often the case. The net effect of the home schooling movement will likely be more kids who require remedial reading and math in the upper grades.

Oct 27, 2005 - 10:10 am 58. jerry:

Thibaud:

Your are way off base on home schooling. Test scores for homeschoolers are much higher then the median for children enrolled in both private and public schools.

Oct 27, 2005 - 10:24 am 59. thibaud:

Jerry, puleeze. Try showing me evidence of a proper experiment with normal controls and then we can talk.

It’s bad enough that the public schools are failing, but it’s ridiculous to suggest the nation give up on the entire notion of schooling as well. I know that the political class– both parties– has made a hash of the public space, but let’s fix the problems rather than suggest everyone retreat into survivalist mode. Home schooling is a joke, not a solution.

Oct 27, 2005 - 10:32 am 60. jerry:

Thibaud:

Explain why homeschooling is a joke? Do you have any evidence to that effect. Do you know any homeschoolers? Do you know what is being taught. Somehow, I doubt that.

Oct 27, 2005 - 10:43 am 61. thibaud:

Jerry, we can continue to discuss this unrelated topic on your blog if you wish– I’m keen to see evidence of yours from a credible study– but I don’t think it’s fair to Roger to hijack this thread, as we’re at risk of doing.

rgds,

thibaud

Oct 27, 2005 - 10:47 am 62. Syl:

thibaud

“Bush is seeking to place a loyal ally of the clan on the Court as a way of protecting his admin’s legacy.”

Now you sound just like a lefty. That’s exactly how they look at the world. Ulterior motives for everything.

DougF

“Let Alaska pay for its own wastefulness. Why should someone in San Diego pay for a useless expense, simply because ‘ log-rolling is the way the corrupt work in Washington?”

It’s always about you, isn’t it?

Those moneys are fungible BOTH ways. Alaskans pay federal taxes too, you know. And some of their money may have paid for some bridge or other you use every day.

Oct 27, 2005 - 11:21 am 63. Paul:

It’s not whether or not pork benefits one group here, another there. It’s whether or not it’s a waste of hard earned tax dollars essentially used to buy votes for incumbent politicians. It’s just another facet of corruption and it does a tremendous disservice to the American people at large.

Oct 27, 2005 - 11:50 am 64. Steven Mitchell:

Jerry, don’t bother with that argument. Thibaud is afraid that kids home schooled will not learn his version of how religion and civics actually function. That scares him. Notice how he diminishes it with a sarcastic aside, but then doesn’t want to talk about it?

It is relevant to the subject at hand, since the public schools are one of the prime battlegrounds for the indoctrination on politics. I always find it amusing how adamant the proponents of universal public school monopoly are–almost as if they took it on faith.

I know about 40 to 50 home schooled kids pretty well (and not same organization, either), at least as far as their education goes. I have some insight into the education of at least twice that number. Out of all of those, two didn’t learn mathematics as well as they should, though they do have a functional 8th grade math level. All of them read above grade level. Several of them are very conversant with government. I had a great literature discussion with a 15 year old other day, that would put most college grads to shame. They have a fair number of college scholarships. One just got a 1420 SAT (on equivalent of old scoring out of 1600, not sure what new numbers are). Last year, one guy got perfect. I’d stack all that against the average public high school any day. National testing scores show the same kind of results across the nation.

Sure, if we had 1950-style universities, I might have reservations–at least after 6th or 8th grade. But we do not. We have pander-bear universities that spend a lot of time on remedial work for all the products of those public schools. Home schooling high school *may*, depending on the student, put them slightly behind what they could do at a great high school. This is the same kind of behind that going to a solid but not spectacular state university engineering program puts you behind compared to the MIT student. You are still way ahead of everyone else.

And that’s where home schooling shines. It has a lot better track record at not leaving kids behind. It is also why home schooled kids beat public school kids on average. And of course, if a home school kid wants to start some college courses at 15 or 16, he doesn’t have to fight a bureaucracy to take those classes.

Thibaud, how about you show us a scientific study that shows that home school students perform the way you say? But wait, you can’t.

Oct 27, 2005 - 12:13 pm 65. Paul:

Heres where the public schools are headed in California.

BRENTWOOD, CA (ANS), January 9, 2002 — As children return to school this week, following the Christmas break, 7th graders in a growing number of public schools, who are not permitted to wear a cross or speak the name of Jesus, will be required to attend an intensive three week course on Islam; a course in which students are mandated to learn the tenets of Islam, study the important figures of the faith, wear a robe, adopt a Muslim name and stage their own Jihad.

http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/2002Jan/jan14ns1.htm

Oct 27, 2005 - 12:20 pm 66. Paul:

More on the above:

“The ACLJ sent a letter to the Byron Union School District in Byron, California following objections from parents to a mandatory three-week course for 7th grade students. According to news reports, the class requires students to pray

Oct 27, 2005 - 12:24 pm 67. Syl:

Paul

“It’s whether or not it’s a waste of hard earned tax dollars essentially used to buy votes for incumbent politicians. It’s just another facet of corruption and it does a tremendous disservice to the American people at large.”

Well, then, educate the voters. If they don’t care, nothing will change.

“If you elect me, I promise on my cat’s grave that I will never ask for one penney more from the federal government than we have given them in taxes. Even if that means we must wait another twenty years to widen the bridge over Cornstalk River. This is my pledge to you.”

Oct 27, 2005 - 1:38 pm 68. dougf:

Those moneys are fungible BOTH ways. Alaskans pay federal taxes too, you know. And some of their money may have paid for some bridge or other you use every day.–Syl

My intent was to castigate STUPID,GREEDY,CLUELESS, politicians,and the ridiculous system that supports them, not to beat up on the good citizens of Alaska, but since you insist:

Is it not true that the State of Alaska is the biggest hog at the Federal trough on a per capita basis of ALL the States? They get enough(well more than enough if truth be told)without the added insult of that bridge.

The bridge to nowhere is a bridge too far and is merely the most glaring example of an intellectually/ethically bankrupt ‘political’class which clearly has no will to reform itself.

Since you posit that it is supposedly up to the people to correct this culture of corruption, why not have a national referendum on these ‘earmarks’. You know once a year ALL the special projects set up to endear the politician to HIS/HER constituents are listed in one giant question to the people. We could even rank them by descending dollars of expenditure.

And then VOTE on them.

Then we could see how truly popular these ‘excellent’ uses of public money really were.

Works for me.

ps— And on the principle of ‘if you can’t beat them,join them’, I have decided to adapt to the prevailing culture. So from now on it truly is all about me . —:-)

Oct 27, 2005 - 4:25 pm 69. Paul:

Syl:

“Well, then, educate the voters. If they don’t care, nothing will change.”

Fair enough. It’s important to keep the topic in the public’s eye and ear. Blog’s help, and we can all pitch in by contacting our elected representatives.

Truth be told, however, I’m far less worried about the economy and the spending in Washington than I am about national security. And I’m even more concerned about the enemy within. The fact that we’re teaching children to learn to pray to Allah in middle schools is simply insane. There is a suicidal substrate in modern American society and I’m astounded by it’s breadth.

Oct 27, 2005 - 4:51 pm 70. richard mcenroe:

funny thing. I’m reading James McGregor Burns’ Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom: the final volume in the biography, covering the immediate run-up to the war.

The isolationist/interventionist (peace/war) rhetoric and invective are absolutely identical, allowing for the Baby Boomer’s infantile potty-mouth, right down to the lurid conspiracy theories.

Couple of funny things tho:

The parties are 180 degrees reversed, with the Democrats and Republicans swapping positions, and…

…when war did come, Republican presidential hopefuls like Wendell Wilkie got behind FDR and the War Effort.

Both of these are too much to hope for today.

Oct 27, 2005 - 5:35 pm 71. richard mcenroe:

funny thing. I’m reading James McGregor Burns’ Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom: the final volume in the biography, covering the immediate run-up to the war.

The isolationist/interventionist (peace/war) rhetoric and invective are absolutely identical, allowing for the Baby Boomer’s infantile potty-mouth, right down to the lurid conspiracy theories.

Couple of funny things tho:

The parties are 180 degrees reversed, with the Democrats and Republicans swapping positions, and…

…when war did come, Republican presidential hopefuls like Wendell Wilkie got behind FDR and the War Effort.

Both of these are too much to hope for from today’s Democratic Party.

Oct 27, 2005 - 5:35 pm 72. thibaud:

Not exactly, Richard. Whatever else you want to accuse her of, Hillary’s been foursquare behind the war. Her peers have praised her work in the Senate on military and defense issues. If you want to accuse the all-but-certain 2008 Dem nominee of Taftite isolationism, you’ll be hard pressed to convince the Kossacks and the left wing of the party, which detests her pro-war stance and will sooner or later desperately seek an ABH alternative if she doesn’t throw enough domestic left-wing carrots their way.

Oct 27, 2005 - 8:40 pm 73. thibaud:

Also: it’s more than a stretch to call Chuck Hagel a Truman-Acheson internationalist. He’s as pure a midwestern Taftite Repub isolationist as they come.

Oct 27, 2005 - 8:41 pm 74. HA:

Terry,

The 50’s and 60’s were a time of turmoil no doubt. The wheels did in fact fall of the cart. But when the wheels were put back on, the country was a better place because for the first time all Americans were able to claim their God-given rights.

But something is different now. Back then, the establishment still believed in the fundamental virtue of America in spite of our flaws. But those elites have been swept aside. The new elites reject American virtue, and share Europe’s contempt for us.

You offered your anecdote, now I’ll offer mine. My Jewish grandmother fled Russia back in 1912 when the Czar’s thought killing Jews would solve their problems. She had profound faith in this country as the one and only place where she could find freedom. This faith isn’t lost on my father who hangs a painting of Ellis Island in my parent’s dining room.

Moving forward 90+ years, I recently got into an argument about Iraq with a colleague who is a Russian Jew who immigrated after the fall of the Soviet’s. His arguments against the war had nothing to do with the WMD’s or terrorism. His argument was that America was just as bad as Saddam, citing the usual leftwing litany beginning with Vietnam. And even worse, he asserted America was no different than Nazi era Germany. Who the hell is America to think it can impose its view of “democracy” on another country?

I was stunned. How can highly intelligent, highly educated Jew see no difference between America and Nazi era Germany? The answer is that he attended college where he was indoctrinated with anti-American Marxist dogma.

The different experiences between my Russian Jewish grandmother and a more recent Russian Jewish immigrant highlight the profound change in the elites of our country. Back then, the elites instilled a love of country. Today, they instill hatred.

There were indeed tremendous challenges in the times you harken back to. The wheels did in fact fall of the cart. But in response, the elites in this country helped build a better, stronger cart. But today, the elites want to wreck the cart and scatter pieces, and rebuild it in the Euro-Socialist mold. That’s the diffference.

Oct 28, 2005 - 3:52 am 75. richard mcenroe:

Thibaud — I’d say I’ll believe when I see it, but there’s no way I’m giving her the chance. The woman did her thesis on Saul Alinsky, fer godssake. It trangresses reason to expect honest engagement from her.

Oct 28, 2005 - 11:16 pm

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