The NYT today trumpets that Obama is trying to jump start his campaign by talking tough to Hillary (or something):
“I don’t think people know what her agenda exactly is,” Mr. Obama continued, citing Social Security, Iraq and Iran as issues on which she had not been fully forthcoming.
“Now it’s been very deft politically,” he said. “But one of the things that I firmly believe is that we’ve got to be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we’re going to need to make in order to get a mandate for change, not to try to obfuscate and avoid being a target in the general election.”
Oh, blather. One of the things Obama ought to know is that any time anyone uses the words “…one of the things that I firmly believe is that we’ve got be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we’re going to need to make…” is that anyone who had been previously awake has just gone to sleep. We’re not listening. And we shouldn’t be. The words “firmly believe” by themselves should be “firmly” banned from the English language. They constitute such a tiresome cliché you can’t even parody them. It’s too boring. If that’s Barack’s idea of a jump start, he better try Ambien.
Now giving Obama his due, which isn’t a lot, the way the American presidential campaign is currently structured even Jackie Mason himself might put us all to sleep. No one has that much interesting to say for so long – and certainly not politicians, not any living ones anyway.
I have an idea. Why not after six months of campaigning we have an option of voting all candidates out on both sides and bringing in fresh ones? At least it would help us stay awake. The way things are going now, whoever assumes the Presidency in ‘09, it’s going to seem as if they’re already well into their second term by the time they’re sworn in. In Hillary’s case, make that a fourth term.
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20 Comments
1. Wellspring:I’m looking for a good administrator, someone who can enact thoughtful policies that secure our long-term future. Someone who is a good communicator and can educate Americans about the tough choices we face to build a working majority for even the painful and/or complex policy choices that are necessary.
I’d like someone who recognizes the civilizational conflict we’re in, while also setting up a place of strategic pre-eminence in a multipolar world that is slowly triangulating against us.
Someone who can secure long-term economic growth using the principles of free choice, free markets and free trade.
Someone who can get us to make the sacrifices we need to make to extricate us from the demographic challenge we face when the Baby Boomer retire.
Someone who doesn’t try to use government as his personal hammer to bang us into his favorite moral shape. Though if he realizes that we face major cultural challenges and wants to use persuasion and leadership to get people to make better personal choices, that’s fine by me.
If you can find someone like that, great. He or she has my vote. I’m thrilled to get my entertainment elsewhere if he can’t satisfy the chattering class on that front.
I’ll vote boredom any day.
Oct 28, 2007 - 4:54 am 2. Wellspring:UPDATE: Is it just me or did I just kick off the Draft Alan Greenspan effort?
Oct 28, 2007 - 4:56 am 3. jedrury:Wellspring:
Oct 28, 2007 - 6:08 am 4. jedrury:“thoughtful policies that secure our long-term future.” Your wishlist is an boring, snoring as any politician’s.
Wellspring:
Oct 28, 2007 - 6:09 am 5. Buddy Larsen:“thoughtful policies that secure our long-term future.” Your wishlist is an boring, snoring as any politician’s.
I want someone who will force me to try to have a good attitude.
Oct 28, 2007 - 6:33 am 6. David Thomson:There is no reason to overcomplicate matters. This is the number one question you should ask in next year’s elections: which candidate is the least politically correct? Which one will not come psychologically unglued when confronted with the misdeeds of dark skinned individuals? All other questions will normally be of secondary importance.
Oct 28, 2007 - 7:11 am 7. Roger:David, are you off your meds? Why the sudden hobbyhorse about “dark skinned individuals?” To whom are you referring? Thomas Sowell? Larry Elder? Magic Johnson? Enough.
Oct 28, 2007 - 8:38 am 8. David Thomson:I am not the only writing on this theme:
“The analogue in the political world is that the Liberal Narcissist sees the dark skinned other as, essentially, a child. It is not so much that they cannot make judgments of other cultures, though that is the manifest content of their theories of multiculturalism, but that they see the child/other as authentically seeking to gratify primitive, ie infantile, desires. To thwart such desires is, in this world view, tantamount to child abuse. Children cannot be held to adult standards of responsibility and neither can other (primitive/childish) cultures.”
—Shrinkwrapped
http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2007/10/narcissism-and-.html
You may also wish to read the writings of Phyllis Chesler. The fact that the Islamic nihilists are usually dark skinned individuals discombobulates the leftist community. Both Shrinkwrapped and Chesler are essentially on the same page with me.
Oct 28, 2007 - 9:44 am 9. AlanC:Um Roger, did I detect a twitch in your left knee with your response to David?
Have Messers Sowell, Elder or Johnson been engaged in misdeeds lately? At least large enough misdeeds to prompt comment?
I suggest that I’m right with David in the need to abandonen PCism that effects us vis a vis the Mugabe’s of Africa (of which there are frighteningly large numbers) Not to mention the various Muslims whom when attacked claim (with support from their LLL supporters) to be the victims of racsism. Don’t seem to matter if they’re Phillipino, Indian, Pakistani (aka n***ers in the UK) Saudi etc. Not to mention all the Mexican illegals and the various homegrown “race” victims (I’m sure Sharpton & Jackson can provide you with a comprehensive list that includes Durham NC strippers).
To criticize them is to earn the label from the PC crowd. What’s the phrase for this?
The soft bigotry of low expectations. Time to move on and deal from a common deck.
Oct 28, 2007 - 11:20 am 10. Roger:I don’t disagree with Chesler or Shrinkwrapped. In fact, what they are saying is quite obvious. What concerns me is that these ideas are phrased in a precise manner and not in one which can be construed as racist. Because that is giving your opponent a bat with which to club you. This kind of discussion takes special precision because loaded.
Oct 28, 2007 - 12:52 pm 11. Buddy Larsen:Nothing wrong with the facts re David & Alan.
But still I’m with Roger that this idea, if presented short form, comes across KKK bumper-sticker, or IOW opposite the intended meaning.
As they say, it’s all in the presentation.
Oct 28, 2007 - 1:03 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:Reduced, it’s the “n” word argument. It’s a different word, depending on who says it & why. Of course it can be used in a sense of irony, in order to ridicle the word itself–but the phonetics and/or spelling are exactly the same as if used directly to ridicule a person.
Oct 28, 2007 - 1:49 pm 13. David Thomson:“…and not in one which can be construed as racist. Because that is giving your opponent a bat with which to club you.”
Those who object to this sort of rehetoric will so do regardless if the ideas are allegedly “phrased in a precise manner.” Trust me on this: both Phyllis Chesler and Shrinkwrapped are perceived to be racist scum bags by the politically correct elites. White guilt over past racial injustice literally threatens to destroy Western Civilization. Left-wing political leaders find it virtually impossible to combat Islamic nihilism. This is a harsh fact that must be bluntly said—or we will not have a country to pass along to our grandchildren. The time is getting very late. And unfortunately there are far too many well meaning but naive people who do not believe that it makes any real difference whether Hillary Clinton is our next commander-in-chief!
Oct 28, 2007 - 4:42 pm 14. Wellspring:Your wishlist is an boring, snoring as any politician’s.
That’s my point. I could care less how exciting or interesting my leader is, except maybe in the narrow sense that an interesting politician might be a better communicator. If I want to be excited, I’ll ride a rollercoaster.
Oct 28, 2007 - 5:07 pm 15. Gary Rosen:“I want someone who will force me to try to have a good attitude.”
Buddy, will you vote for me if I run on a platform of “Beatings will continue until morale improves”? Come to think of it, Carter already tried that in his “malaise” speech.
Oct 28, 2007 - 6:15 pm 16. Gary Rosen:Thomson apparently has been beaten completely into submission by the left, because he now does exactly what they do – analyze everything through the prism of race. But it’s the ideology, stupid. First communism, now Islam, anything to try to undermine the free market and Western individualism. Since they abhor religion, they use race as a smokescreen to give themselves the moral “high ground” and Thomson, like the dummy he is, plays right into their hands. That is why they are so savage with D’Souza, Malkin, Clarence Thomas, even Condi, any non-white who doesn’t buy into their ideology – not incidentally revealing their own racism in the process.
Oct 28, 2007 - 6:22 pm 17. Buddy Larsen:LOL–I’d almost forgotten Carter’s famous “Mayonnaise” speech–that man was truly a condiment to his race.
Oct 28, 2007 - 9:51 pm 18. David Thomson:“Thomson apparently has been beaten completely into submission by the left, because he now does exactly what they do – analyze everything through the prism of race.”
Huh? You obviously are not paying attention. I am defintiely not analyzing “everything through the prism of race.” On the contrary, I am pointing out that this is exactly what the leftists are doing! They are existentially and psychologically so guilt tripped that it is impossible for them to combat the evils committed by dark skin people. This is why the war on terror will be gutted almost immediately if Hillary Clinton is out next president.
Oct 29, 2007 - 5:58 am 19. Buddy Larsen:Hillary –THAT’s when we’ll for sure be hearing “Beatings will continue until morale improves”. LOL (*sob*)
Oct 29, 2007 - 10:13 am 20. ben:What bothers me is their belief that cheap, crass sniping, to the detriment of the Democratic Party as a whole, is seen as a sensible political tactic. Then they repeat the exact same thing at the national level- cheap, crass sniping, to the detriment of the nation as a whole. If they cannot be reasonably loyal to their own party, do we really expect that they would ever put national unity above petty agendas?
Is it simply beyond Democrat understanding that one can be intelligent, educated, and moral and STILL have a difference of opinion, even among themselves?
Ben
Oct 29, 2007 - 10:36 am