Palinomania
If the post-Speech reaction of the talking heads at CNN, PBS and MSBNC, or the op-ed ravings of Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd, Eleanor Clift or Sally Quinn are any indication, the Secret Service better enlist the Alaskan National Guard for help ensuring the Alaskan Governor’s safety.
A beautiful, confident, articulate, independent, accomplished—and conservative—woman apparently has enraged Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American intelligentsia, as if they were collectively hit by a cruise missile aimed from Middle America.
When Palin talks about her present life it sounds as authentic as Biden’s showy populism came off as false. Enraged feminists are apparently the gatekeepers for less well-educated American women, who are supposed to have 0-1.5 children not 5! Their husbands must be professors, lawyers, CEOs, editors—not snowmobile champions, union members, oil workers, and fishermen—or, worse, all in one! And unlike a Pelosi, Quinn, or Clinton, Palin, God forbid, did not rely on a powerful, wealthy husband or father to energize her career. Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose. The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become.
Dumb and dumber
At about the time that the Republicans were making the case that liberals were hyperpartisan, a little unhinged, and out of touch, hundreds of nutty demonstrators were outside the convention screaming in the usual street theater mode about war crimes et al.—even as Joe Biden announced that when elected, he and Obama may well seek out Bush administration officials to try them for crimes!
Two nations….
The Geraldine Ferraro Democratic Vice Presidential nominee appointment was an inspired stroke of genius that advanced the cause of feminism; Palin’s was tawdry tokenism.
Edwards was a social reformer brought down by the tabloids; Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is white trash and fair game.
Insulting “small town mayors” and “good looking” women is funny; suggesting that “community organizing” is often a farce is a felony.
Obama’s violation of drug laws with a “little blow” was youthful exuberance; Palin’s husband’s DUI was more proof of a working-class messy family.
Joe Biden bravely continued as Senator after the tragic death of his wife and daughter left his injured young sons with a single parent; Sarah Palin selfishly shorted her children by running for VP and endangered her infants by flying while pregnant.
Criticizing Clinton’s engaging in sex in the oval office and lying about it to the American people were once “the politics of personal destruction”; lying that Sarah Palin might not have been the mother of her 5th child is the mere overreach of the blogs caused by the improper vetting of the McCain campaign.
This all reminds me of the 2000 campaign when the media beat the dead-horse of Bush (Yale BA, Harvard MBA) as the lousy, lazy C-student, when, in fact, Al Gore’s undergraduate record at Harvard was full of C’s, F’s at Vanderbilt Divinity School (dropped out), and C’s at Vanderbilt Law School (dropped out). The point is not that quitting professional schools is necessarily a sign of anything, but rather once again that the media is shown to be bending and inventing facts for their higher purposes of liberal utopianism— a continuation of some half a century when we remember the “dumb” Ike floundering before the “brilliant” and “witty” Adlai Stevenson (who flunked out of Harvard Law School, a fact hidden from the public for decades.)
The Poverty of the Legal Culture
Every Democratic Presidential and VP nominee of the last thirty years, with the exception of Al Gore (law school drop out), has been a lawyer—Obama (s) and Biden, Kerry and Edwards, Gore and Lieberman, Clinton (s) and Gore, Dukakis and Bentsen, and Mondale and Ferraro. And while Carter was a failure, he at least brought a different perspective from someone whose professional training was argumentation.
The Republicans, at least, understood that legal training is not a prerequisite for the Presidency (one in law doesn’t build things, grow, defend, or create anything). The Democrats need to branch out, and find a Reagan, Palin, or McCain. Had the Bushes and Cheney been lawyers, I doubt they would have been elected. I am not suggesting that the products of modern law schools are not articulate, clever, used to arguing both sides of an issue, often rhetorically adept, and attentive to detail; but all that is part of the problem: they simply rarely wade out and solve problems rather than postfacto examining and litigating those who do.
All About Race, All the Time
Two truths have emerged: after promising to be the postracial candidate, Obama evokes race constantly; after suggesting McCain will, he hasn’t yet.
Remember this from Obama: “So what they are going to do is make you scared of me. You know he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like those other presidents (sic) on the dollar bills.”
Or this Obamism: “They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
Or this in Berlin: “I know that I don’t look like the other Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city.”
Or his slur of his grandmother as a “typical white person” or the Pennsylvania “clingers” nonsense. No need to go into the rest of the Obama racial stable: Rev. Wright’s racist outbursts; Father Pfleger’s creepy rants; Michelle’s more subtle “they” “raised the bar” complaints, or Barack Obama’s own promises to fund more “oppression studies” as a result of the “tragic history” of the United States that requires “reparations” in deed, not just word.
And then, of course, there are the self-appointed spokesmen from the nut-fringe, racists like Ludacris or Diddy who have weighed in with creepy attacks on McCain and Palin. Here I include the ever crazy Howard Dean. Remember this from the Chairman of the Democratic Party: “If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the (chuckles) Republican Party, because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.”
Then there are the op-ed writers weighing in on cue, like Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatima Ali: “If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness — and hopelessness!”
Or this from Harold Meyerson (who earlier accused Hillary and Bill Clinton of playing the race card) in the Washington Post: “In a year when the Democrats have an African American presidential nominee, the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks’ party, the party that delays the advent of our multicultural future, the party of the American past. Republican conventions have long been bastions of de facto Caucasian exclusivity, but coming right after the diversity of Denver, this year’s GOP convention is almost shockingly — un-Americanly — white. Long term, this whiteness is a huge problem.”
Or Bob Herbert’s fantastic claim that a McCain ad showing Obama speaking in front of the Berlin Victory Column was really a racist attack juxtaposing the Washington Monument and the Leaning Tower of Pisa as phallic symbols to scare the public about black male/white women coupling. About all Herbert revealed was that the New York Times columnist can’t distinguish America’s best known obelisk from a European monument to Prussian militarism.
Bottom line: expect more of the race card, especially if Palin gives the Republicans a bounce after the convention—and anyone who objects to it will be preemptively charged—of course—with racism.
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194 Comments
1. Minerva:I’m thinking of that commercial:
Obama: Sham
Palin: Wow!
Sep 4, 2008 - 9:00 am 2. Dave:There is not a dry eye among Republicans this morning.
Among Democrats, there is not a dry seat.
Sep 4, 2008 - 9:34 am 3. Pajamas Media » Liberals Target Palin:[...] the entire story here [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 9:46 am 4. Halperin at Time: A+ for Palin:[...] VDH Unbound: read it all Posted by Dan Collins @ 2:03 pm | Trackback Share This [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:02 am 5. Yosemite Sam:Devastating speech showing the big “O” for the empty suit he is. Too bad most Americans have their heads up their ass and can’t discern truth from glitz.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:06 am 6. Richard:I read that piece of trash that was supposed to be a column by Ms. Ali. Is she trying to incite violence? Somehow that would not suprise me. Consider all the nice peaceful demonstraters that have been hanging around in the twin cities.
Also I have a commercial in my mind too.
1 McCain/Palin bumper sticker 1.00
1 Campaign contribution 25.00
The look of disbelief on the faces of the MSM and the Socialists PRICELESS!
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:07 am 7. Macgawd:The Democrats were hoping that all the media attacks against Palin and her family would unsettle her–that she would be visibly shaken during her acceptance speech, and that she would make a concerted effort to downplay those attacks against her 17-year-old daughter. Much to their shock and consternation, Sarah Palin was not only not shaken by the media attacks, but like a hurricane, seemed to feed off of all that heat, growing stronger and stronger with every attack.
The Dems are right to be frightened at this point; Obama has nearly dropped off the media radar screen, and the opponent that they thought was all smoke and mirrors turns out to be an unshakable force of nature that feeds off of every challenge. Sarah Palin is everything that the Dems hoped for in their manufactured candidate of Barack Obama, only she is real. She is the living embodiment of the American family and the American Dream, and she has invigorated the GOP like no one since Ronald Reagan.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:12 am 8. Sarge:WOW !!! Millions of men have fallen in love with the Barracuda! What a speech. Accused of a Bush speech? Bush in eight years never gave one speech to equal hers.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:15 am 9. Ed Wallis:“Minerva”,
I’m thinking of an ad more like this :
picture of Zerobama (a still or even a video of him dancing with Ellen D…) MORPHING INTO one of Vanilla Ice or Milli Vanilli
Announcer’s Voice: “If you want an entertainer, pick one you can dance to. For President, VOTE McCain.”
_________________________________
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:20 am 10. Chuck Pelto:Cries of condemnation for racist incorrectness in 3, 2, 1….
TO: Victor Davis Hanson, et al.
RE: Another One Out-of-the-Park
These compare and contrast articles are going to be killers, for anyone with more than a couple of synapses to rub together or isn’t on drugs.
Here’s one from a local columnist that does another killer compare and contrast.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:21 am 11. Self-hating boomer:[Keep up the scear!]
The last Republican elected president with a law background was Nixon. Before him, it was Coolidge. Draw your own conclusions.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:31 am 12. Alice Roddy:If the only reason not to vote for Obama-Biden is racism, then the only reason not to vote for McCain-Palin is prejudice against Eskimos.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:35 am 13. Self-hating boomer:My fiance is a lawyer, and she completely agrees.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:35 am 14. Pappione:Chuck, that is an awesome article that you shared with us! I cannot wait to hear her speak again! I have never seen the liberals scramble for a footing like they are doing now
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:39 am 15. GGA - Dublin, Ohio:McCain/Palin ‘08!
Dr. Hanson -
Thank you for the blast of fresh air. You have given us another brilliant post, as usual.
You succinctly compare/contrast statements from key players in current events in a way that is enlightening and, sadly, unique. It is such a simple thing to compare what various people have said or done on a given issue, and yet, the MSM refuse to do it, since it rarely fits into their preconceived views on the story line.
Of course, given the volume of information coming at us citizens each day, it is easy to forget who said what and how it was reported making it harder to make those connections and perceive the contrasts. Your posts and columns highlighting them are, thus, very helpful.
After reading a post or column from you with the cotrasting statements and/or “reporting” done by the MSM on a given issue, it becomes distressingly obvious how the MSM “news” outlets operate: They are less concerned about having you to see the news; they are far more interetsed in having you to see the news their way. Bias seems to me to be too tame of a description for this phenomenon, although I am not sure what else to call it.
Since the MSM has utterly abandoned the job of simply collecting the facts on important issues and reporting them, it is comforting to know someone still can.
Keep up the great work.
Kind regards,
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:39 am 16. Sharonsj:GGA - Dublin, Ohio
Prejudice against Eskimos? What about the fact that Alaska has a balanced budget because it gets tons of money from oil and gas, unlike the rest of the nation, and has so much that it gives cash back to every Alaskan–except for Eskimos, who apparently don’t count….
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:46 am 17. Rachel Peepers:The Clintonian politics of personal destruction is alive and well now being force fed to the American people by a combination of the mainstream media and the Obama hatchet Army, Thugs Incorporated. To them night is day, falsity is truth, bad is good.
For example, Obama is as friendly with terrorists (Bill Ayers) as he is buddy buddy with Marxist, Hate-America-First, and slander-women-for-fun-and-profit Pastors. Obama then lies about any knowledge of what transpired over a twenty year span.
But, of course, the mainstream media doesn’t call him on it.
And that’s good.
Palin is on a first name basis with honest government, fights corruption be it Democratic or Republican. And defeats it.
And that’s bad.
Obama’s leading the charge to keep up the killing of the unborn out of sheer convenience at a rate of 1.3 million a year.
That’s faster than the Nazis killed the Jews. History called that the holocaust. Barack calls it choice.
And that’s good.
Sarah chooses not to kill her children, but rather raises them. Has a wonderful family, and brings children into the world even if they’re not perfect; will never grow up to be Harvard Law graduates. Furthermore, Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in any super race, flaw- free-offspring theory.
And that’s bad.
Barack never served in the military. Doesn’t believe in a strong defense. If elected, vows to scrap the nation’s new missile shield that could save millions of American lives. Pledges never to use nuclear weapons. Makes it his mission to gut the military if he becomes commander in chief.
And that’s good.
Sarah Palin’s son joined the infantry; is putting his life on the line for his country.
Not only is that bad, says Barack and the mainstream media, but that’s stupid.
I could go on and on. But I’m sure you get the point. The mainstream media will take any part of Palin’s life, no matter how praiseworthy and savage it. Then Barack and his merry henchmen after the fact, like an arsonist, try to distance themselves from the hate speech.
Make no mistake. Barack Obama is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. Go down the road with this closet Marxist and the sign post up ahead will say Recession. And they get worse and worse the farther you travel down the road.
Of course, the destruction of Sarah Palin is just one part of the grand scheme, a combination of Obama-think and mainstream media malfeasance.
The very security of our nation is at stake, and Barack and the mainstream Blame-America-First media are bent on destroying something more than one person. Rather, Barack’s reckless Socialist/Marxist philosophies put every person who believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at grave risk.
Really, more is at stake on November 4 than just a Presidential choice.
It’s nothing short of the well being of our families.
Nothing less than the future of our country.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:49 am 18. glc:Awsome article.
Palin is the real deal. She is flesh and blood. The liberal elites have to kill her politically because they fear her. Kind of kind when a vampire has to shrink from the light of day. Palin is that light of day.
She speaks truth to power.
And they fear her for it.
Americans, me included, love her for it.
And I’m a moderate Republican female lawyer.
God bless Sarah Palin and her family.
God bless America.
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:14 am 19. Palin a news Powerhouse | The Anchoress:[...] a good has a lot to do with whether more good comes your way. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hanson: If the post-Speech reaction of the talking heads at CNN, PBS and MSBNC, or the op-ed ravings of [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:34 am 20. W::Poor self-hating boomer. Don’t buy in to the hype. You and your fiance ought to read some history, the Federalist papers, or even Atlas Shrugged.
Lawyers from the founding, to the civil war, to the 50’s (Brown v Board of Education), 60’s(Miranda), to now, protect and make possible the place that allows all that “creating,” you think happens in a vacum.
Know one big diff between the old USSR and similar places and the US? Hint: what does the US have more of than anywhere else? What do our disatisfied people do when they’re pissed? Revolt? break off? Or sue? What would you rather have them do?
What did blacks do when they were pissed? Form national insurrectionist gangs? Or operate in the system?
When businesses wouldn’t hire them, unions barred them (so busy were they at GM, Ford and Chrysler doing all that “creating”), they went where everyone can go: to court. And luck for us they could.
Don’t be a self loathing person: businesses have always been in favor of power consolidations, unchecked immigration and don’t care much for the rights of the “little people.” They’ll apply for government handouts, anti-competitive laws, organize offshore to avoid taxes, bury waste near city water supplies…They may have diversity committes now, but they weren’t pushing for civil rights in the 50’s.
Take away the lawyers and this place would collapse in ten years. PS: tell your finance to get out now: if she’s not proud of being a lawyer, she’ll be miserable at it.
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:40 am 21. Mingjaiyo:Good analysis.Thank you for the clarity of presentation the MSM is sorely lacking these days. Her speech was invigorating.Her “realness” was palpable through the television screen. I swear that I can at times quite literally smell the BS from Obama when I hear him speak. I have felt very negatively towards him from the time of watching his announcement speech as he gave it. My reaction to him was worse than my initial reaction to Bill Clinton. I see nothing more than a modern day caricature of a mid-1800’s snake oil saleman. Palin was refreshing even knowing that she is a “politician”. By the way-as for the Eskimo thing-Todd Palin is part Eskimo.
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:41 am 22. Boris:Nice straw men! You have quite a collection of them here.
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:46 am 23. Edward Sisson:You mention the Ferraro nomination in 1984 — I remember that one, in fact I was a Dem in San Francisco at the time, did a little early work for Cranston (I have been a Repub. in Maryland since ‘96). The Dem convention was in SF and I recall this one distinctly: everyone knew Mondale was going to lose to Reagan. And that meant that the VP pick was totally symbolic. Now, I liked then, and still like, the fact Mondale picked a woman, and helped break-down the prejudices. But it was obvious to everyone that was what he was doing. A symbol to make a dead-certain loss mean something. Here with Palin we have not merely a symbol, but great substance, and the purpose is to achieve a victory — which it will. And McCain deserves so much praise for seeing Palin’s potential; the first job of a President is to pick the other people and boy has he done it. Go McCain-Palin!
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:49 am 24. Fresh Air:I’m starting to believe McCain has a great strategy here. It’s to cede all the big cities to Barry (who would have won them anyway), and go after all the suburbs and small towns. Rove, you magnificent bastard!
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:52 am 25. David P:I can see why average Liberals are so worried, for all intents & purposes Palin is or less one of them.
Sep 4, 2008 - 11:53 am 26. James Bennett:In light of Dean’s comment about the “white party”, it’s interesting to note that for the first time, three out of the four top-of-ticket families are multiracial. If McCain-Palin wins, McCain’s daughter will be the first South Asian face in the White House. Of course, if Jindal continues to do a good job, the second might not be too far behind.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:03 pm 27. rocketeer:Dave: ROFL!!!
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:10 pm 28. BMoon:To add to the continuing “Dumb and Dumber” theme (just when you think the O campaign and their half-orcs of the MSM couldn’t get any worse,) Obama this morning was bleating about his “community organizing” credits him with more experience than Palin’s mayoral and governorship experince.
Did I hear that right? He wants to make this election about Obama vs. Palin??
(Insert Twilight Zone music here)
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:10 pm 29. T:My comment re-posted from http://www.neoneocon.com 9/3/08 10:59 PM.
Her speech aside, I am amazed that Sarah Palin’s mere presence has turned everything upside down. For the past four days left-leaning pundits and reporters have derided her for not adequately caring for her family implying that she should be home baking cookies. Conservatives, long derided by the left as wanting to keep women “barefoot and pregnant,” defend her right to have a family and a career.
As Laura Ingraham noted the other night, she exposes the hypocrisy and fraud of the left as not really concerned about women’s rights, but rather liberal women’s rights.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, I think that tonight we have seen the opening of a new chapter in the culture war in which the silent majority has become much less silent.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:10 pm 30. _Jon:Consider - for a moment - how this plays out in the years to come if it is successful.
McCain for 8 years, with Palin as VP. Then Palin as PotUS for 8 years with Jindal as VP. Then Bobby for 8 years.
That’s 24 years of strong, conservative leadership lined up.
That will be interesting.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:12 pm 31. rvastar:Brilliant. Perfect.
This from someone who supports the ultimate straw man: a guy whose biggest achievements include writing two books about how great he is and making groundbreaking, first-time-ever-in-the-history-of-polictics promises to “restore hope” to stadiums full of trust fund kids and Lexus-driving latte-drinkers.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:15 pm 32. ZEITGEIST:[...] Plus, “hit by a cruise missile from Middle America.” [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:16 pm 33. kourosh:Just today an agent of Change!!! was forced to resign in midst of Sex, Lies, and Scandals. The mayor of Detroit used more or less the same slogans as Obamama is using.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:18 pm 34. Dave:In addition to Edwards, governor of NY, and others, this new development demonstrates why Liberal (Ex-Marxist) used the manipulation they used in US magazine. It is all about those issues liberals are interested.
Even Palin’s hair style was not a match for Hillary and Boxer and other babes like them. She look likes a real working woman, but a manipulative one as is requires by the corrupted media these days. Boxer uses 000 of $s on her glasses alone. Can Palin do that? No. Therefore, according to manipulative standards of Democs, she is qualified
““If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness — and hopelessness!””
Known to future historians as the “Great Mulatto Riots of 2009″.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:19 pm 35. Chuck Pelto:TO: Boris
RE: Pick….
….a ‘card’. ANY ‘card’.
And let US talk about it.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:19 pm 36. Kurmudge:Palin is demonstrating a twist on the classic scenario- instead of murdering one’s parents and pleading mercy of the court because you are now an orphan, Sarah gets murdered by multiple gossipy lies propounded by legacy media and is then told by them after each is proven to be false that she must nevertheless leave the race because she is politically damaged goods.
Nice scam if you can work it.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:21 pm 37. Carl Pham:Lawyers from the founding, to the civil war, to the 50’s (Brown v Board of Education), 60’s(Miranda), to now, protect and make possible the place that allows all that “creating,” you think happens in a vacum.
You are profoundly ignorant of your own history, at the least. (More likely, you’re just making up any old assertion to defend your profession, which is as understandable as a whore arguing that she helps promote sexual equality.)
First, from a practical point of view, as someone who is in a small and rapidly growing business, I can tell you that lawyers are the weeds and remora of the business world. They and their rules — their paper, their pointless forms and rituals, Sarbanes-Oxley and a hundred zillion other well-meaning but completely clueless about reality imperatives — are a gigantic drag on the ability of people to organize and get stuff done. The best you could say about them is that, like lions on the veldt, they take down the weakest companies and keep the others on their toes. (At great cost to the consumer, of course.)
You’re under some fantasy impression that in the absence of a huge top-heavy law profession either anarchy or the stultifying hyperbureacracy of the Stalinist state — apparently you can’t decide which, or cluelessly believe there’s no difference — would dominate. But nothing could be further from historical truth. There is a direct and simple negative correlation between the heavy clumsy hand of the law and economic growth and innovation. Take any industry that’s heavily regulated: air travel, space flight, phone and cable companies, nuclear power, and ask yourself how much innovation you’ve seen in the last few decades, how much improved bang for the buck. Approximately zip.
Now take industries that have so far largely escaped regulation and government oversight, like Internet companies, Microsoft and Amazon and e-Bay, consumer electronics (e.g. MP3 players and iPhones), biotech, and be amazed at how much growth and innovation. The short way to kill off innovation and adventure in any field is to get the lawyers involved. Always been that way, always has been.
As for this fantasy notion that in the absence of The Law people settle their differences with guns and knives: what planet do you live on? If people were naturally that violent and short-sighted, do you suppose the majesty of The Law (smrf! giggle!) would stop ‘em?
In fact, contrary to your smug contempt, ordinary people are quite reasonable. When they have differences with others, they typically settle them by cutting deals with each other, by compromise and horse-trading. You give this up and I’ll give this. Meet half way. If you pay for this, I’ll pay for that. Et cetera. This is how normal people usually settle their differences, from two neighbors with a fence between their properties that needs repair to two companies competing in the same market.
Lawyers don’t give us a more peaceful option that beating each other with sticks. Quite to the contrary: by suggesting that even the smallest of disputes should be litigated and won (because they sure want to keep their lucrative jobs fighting those battles), they tend to short-circuit the usual tendency of ordinary people to compromise with folks with whom they have differences.
Want easy proof? Know any couples with marriage troubles? What happens to their chances of compromising and saving the marriage once one of them gets talking to a lawyer? Pretty much goes to zero, doesn’t it? Because lawyers don’t preach compromise, negotiation, and being reasonable — they preach outrageous attack, verbal viciousness, unforgiveness, and fights to the death.
All your law school 1L fantasy about lawyers ideally should do for a society doesn’t change by one smidge what they actually do to society, which is, in general, what tapeworms do to healthy animals.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:24 pm 38. Kevin:Minerva:
I’m thinking of that commercial:
Obama: Sham
Palin: Wow!
Sep 4, 2008 - 9:00 am
Carry that a little bit further.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:30 pm 39. bc:“And we all know how Germans make a good choice in leaders.”
The day Obama “gave the finger” to Hillary on camera, he committed suicide as a politician IMO. This juvenile act reveals his true character and unambiguously reveals his attitudes toward women. Play that video often enough and the guy is toast. Especially with Palin in the mix.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:30 pm 40. willis:“Had the Bushes and Cheney been lawyers, I doubt they would have been elected. I am not suggesting that the products of modern law schools are not articulate, clever, used to arguing both sides of an issue, often rhetorically adept, and attentive to detail; but all that is part of the problem: they simply rarely wade out and solve problems rather than postfacto examining and litigating those who do.”
We need lawyers who are good are arguing both sides of the problem, when we need a lawyer. For some reason, people have gotten the idea that being president has some connection to the practice of law and there is none. Being a lawyer certainly doesn’t disqualify one from being president, but trying to be president by performing as a lawyer is a fool’s errand.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:32 pm 41. GD:Right. Lawyers sure don’t know how to solve problems. John Adams, Samuel Chase, John Jay, James Monroe, John Marshall, and Abraham Lincoln sure were a bunch of feckless lawyers unable to do anything to change circumstances and confront the problems of thier day. Jeez, I sure am glad you astute analysis made clear the poverty of these pathetic losers’ profession. Moron.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:37 pm 42. willis:“In light of Dean’s comment about the “white party”, it’s interesting to note that for the first time, three out of the four top-of-ticket families are multiracial. If McCain-Palin wins, McCain’s daughter will be the first South Asian face in the White House. Of course, if Jindal continues to do a good job, the second might not be too far behind.”
Sir, don’t fall into Dean’s trap. He doesn’t mean that the Republican party does not include non-white people. He means that non-whites who belong to the Republican party are Uncle Toms. Ask any democrat and they will tell you that all democrats, and only democrats, are enlightened, compassionate and above racism of any form. Unless, of course, they are a democrat running for office against a black person.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:38 pm 43. msnthrop:Dr. Hanson your always picking the low hanging fruit when it comes to liberals. Any chance your going to offer to rebuttal of the real criticisms of Palin’s “record” Not for entitlement money, but collected millions of for her town as mayor and her state as governor, flip flopping on the bridge to nowhere and keeping the money anyway, a “fiscal conservative” who when she starts her job as mayor finds zero debt and eight years later moves on with them 22 million in debt. The reason she as all this money to burn in Alaska with gas credit checks and tax breaks is the exact same reason you get so worked up over Putin, Chavez, and the Middle East, oil is high, revenue is high and her ability to press the oil companies to pay more is derided when the liberals brought the exact same idea up. Most amusing to me is to hear the conservative pundits talk up her foreign policy experience as commander of the Alaska National Guard and the nearness of Alaska to the Russian coast. I mean, really?
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:41 pm 44. Jack Chambers:Nothing about Palin being a libertarian.
Nothing about how she could have really won the male vote if she had directly taken on the NOW and other Marxist feminists who had trashed her while saying “she doesn’t care about women’s rights”.
I liked her delivery (panache), but for some reason that script-writer Scully continued the foolish Bush tradition of keeping the word “feminism” out of bounds…as if there isn’t a problem with Marxist victim feminism rotting both parties and the judicial system.
Sarah Palin, if allowed to be unleashed, can destroy all that. Men’s Rights Activists, who are not a lock for McCain, expect that she will come out swinging on behalf of all women who know that the NOW does not speak for them.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:46 pm 45. nick:Edwards is white trash.
now are you satisified? since we used the same brush on him as well??
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:47 pm 46. nick:palin is a lying (BTN) corrupt (toropergate) book burning (wasilla library) creationist (wants a debate topic after furor over wanting it taught) Moron (combine the above)
(sex neutral comments)
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:50 pm 47. The Countertop Chronicles » Quote of the Day:[...] Victor David Hanson When Palin talks about her present life it sounds as authentic as Biden’s showy populism came off as false. Enraged feminists are apparently the gatekeepers for less well-educated American women, who are supposed to have 0-1.5 children not 5! Their husbands must be professors, lawyers, CEOs, editors—not snowmobile champions, union members, oil workers, and fishermen—or, worse, all in one! And unlike a Pelosi, Quinn, or Clinton, Palin, God forbid, did not rely on a powerful, wealthy husband or father to energize her career. Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose. The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become. [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:51 pm 48. Larry J:When Mondale picked Ferraro, I don’t rememeber anyone questioning whether her 5 years in the House of Representatives qualified as enough experience for the VP job.
The hypocricy of the Left is so over the line that I’m seriously considering doing something I’ve never done before - I’m thinking about donating money to a politician. I’ve always believed that giving money to a politician is like feeding a strap puppy - you just know it’s going to keep coming back for more. This time, I’m so torqued about the rantings of the Left lunatics and their shrill attacks on Palin that I’ve probably going to write a $500 check to the McCain campaign this weekend. I don’t even like McCain very much but the attacks on Palin are driving me to support his campaign like I’ve never done before.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:53 pm 49. Ron Kean:VIVA VDH
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:53 pm 50. Lou F.:One interesting point about the diversity of the Democrat convention is that it comes not from a selection process but from the imposition of quotas for each group. Diversity is more than not looking the same.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:54 pm 51. GD:Sheesh. Well now I feel guilty about tacking on unnecessary pejoratives. Still, while I usually enjoy your analysis, I feel you analysis of the legal profession is simplistic and unwarranted. Certainly, the prevailing legal culture in this country has been completely flipped on it’s head after the New Deal and the social upheaval of the 1960s and 70s. But the profession is hardly monolithic, as is proven by the success of the Federalist Society in shifting the debate on important issues of our time.
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:57 pm 52. BC:You guys are on drugs — the “MSM” has been excessively effusive about Palin’s speech to a syrupy, eye-rolling extent, including even the NY Times. And it was the blog sites that were doing the Palin bashing, and even then, unlike the pretty much 100% BS, vile bashing of Kerry in 2004 by right wing bloggers, it was mostly fact based except for the bit about who was actually the mother of Trig, but even that rather cruel speculation brought out how Bristol was pregnant. Also Palin is no more an “average” liberal than Bush does — she’s pro-war, pro-drilling, and anti-science.
And as far as the speech itself goes, she delivered it very well, but the contents were, well, kind of dopey (if one was to go by effectively delivered speeches, Jesse Jackson and even Al Sharpton would have already been Presidents). But given her target audience, I suppose that was more or less not a concern….
Sep 4, 2008 - 12:59 pm 53. frege:Great column. I cannot believe the chatter I am reading on the liberal blogs and Obama’s television Q & A from 2:30ish today. Apparently they think they have a winning issue because Palin has denigrated community organizers. Obama’s problem is that most independent voters have some idea of what a community organizer is and are not impressed when they hear about Obama’s resume. If Obama is so proud of his Alinsky days, he should be out there talking about all the great things he did. Unfortunately for that plan, his most lasting accomplishment was the enrichment of one Antoin “Tony” Rezko. I sure am glad the media was able to pull a John Edwards on this story when it came up in the primaries.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:03 pm 54. jay:Well-said Rachel Peepers. Where have you been? I’ve been looking forward to reading your view on this. Conservative woman with strong convictions are a real threat to the libs. I’ve been meeting more and more of them, especially the young people and it gives me hope for this country. You ladies keep kickin ass.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:05 pm 55. JA Lineberry:Fresh Air, if you’ll remember, that’s exactly how Clinton almost beat Obama - by going after the suburbs and small towns. If McCain wants to win, he’ll emulate that strategy. Clinton didn’t figure everything out until it was too late.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:13 pm 56. kolohe46:If John McCain can pull it off tonight, then there’s nothing left to do but shovel dirt into the grave the Democrats and their Hollywood limousine liberal elites and corrupt media sycophants have dug for them. Looks like there’s a new sheriff in town and she ain’t takin’ no prisoners…
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:25 pm 57. Tom:Women - forget the hormones for a second and use your brains, please. If you love Hillary your only real option is to vote for mcCain/Palin. Why? 1. If O/B is elected and they crap out, he will be a 1 term pres, the American people will not be fooled again and you will be looking at 8 years of Republican Presidents. 2. If the O is a great President, you will be looking at 2016 at the earliest for Hil to run, at that point I think most people will be ‘over’ her by then. 3. If McCain wins and the team is pitiful, Hil will be a shoe in for 2012. If McCain wins and they are a great team, at least in 2012 we will have 2 women slugging it out for Pres, with 2 clearly opposing worldviews to choose from. So it looks like McCain/Palin being the only chance that you can get Hil into the W.H.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:29 pm 58. Make ‘em quake | Cold Fury:[...] there yet more, you ask? Oh, you betcher. Category: The Loony Left ♦ [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:39 pm 59. twolaneflash:Governor Palin pulled the wheels off of the Democrats’ “women are victims” meme. Hillary was to be the female victim candidate, and now Sarah Palin appears “a heartbeat from the Presidency” without ever pulling the victim card. Democrats are dead without the religion of victimology. Much of America is fed-up with the victim class and with the elites who feed on them.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:47 pm 60. Agreeing to Disagree? « Expat Texan:[...] 4, 2008 · No Comments Not on you life. Target Palin. Two [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:48 pm 61. Tinfoil Hatter:“W::
Poor self-hating boomer. Don’t buy in to the hype. You and your fiance ought to read some history, the Federalist papers, or even Atlas Shrugged.
Lawyers from the founding, to the civil war, to the 50’s (Brown v Board of Education), 60’s(Miranda), to now, protect and make possible the place that allows all that “creating,” you think happens in a vacum.
Take away the lawyers and this place would collapse in ten years. PS: tell your finance to get out now: if she’s not proud of being a lawyer, she’ll be miserable at it.”
You are kidding, right? The greatness of America is due to lawyers? Your argument is akin to saying that the success of the Space Program is solely due to astronauts. Except no astronaut would have the hubris to believe it, let alone say it.
But believe whatever it takes to get you out of bed in the morning, I suppose.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:48 pm 62. Interested One:I suspect most of you do not remember the old song, which reminds me of Ms. Sarah:
“Lay that pistol down, Babe.
Lay that pistol down.
Pistol packin’ Mama
Lay that pistol down.
Oh, drinking beer in a cabaret
Was I havin’fun!
Until one night she caught me right
And now I’m on the run.
Oh, lay that psitol down, Babe.
Lay that pistol down.
Pistol packin’ mama
Lay that pistol down.
etc.
Sounds like it should, with a few modifications, be the theme song of the Dems. Give up, Dems, you’re toast - which goes quite well with moose stew, I’m told.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:52 pm 63. Palinomania | a nail in His place:[...] At about the time that the Republicans were making the case that liberals were… The Rest of the Story… [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:54 pm 64. Joseph Somsel:Mrs. Palin is most definitely NOT an affirmative action candidate.
Her best lines, to me, was when she asked how were more taxes and more regulation from Washington going to help people?
That is the core difference between the parties.
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:57 pm 65. fedya:@wretchard:
“Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose.”
Hey, I watched Rocky & Bullwinkle, isn’t that ’sposed to be “shoots Meese”? Big time Republican (with horns)… Oh… but wrong administration, right?
@W::
Take away the lawyers and this place would collapse in ten years.
Lawyers represent their clients and many of them chase money. The Democratic Party is the party of We Be The Already (Thank You) Rich so they attract a disproportionate following among the ambulance chasing, gold-digging pandering manipulative types. The Republican Party has had entirely too many of those types in tow for the last decade. Lose the pork, then automatically lose a portion of the greed-’n-feed types, right?
@Self-hating boomer:
My fiance is a lawyer, and she completely agrees.
If John S. McCain and Sarracuda Palin change the dynamic I proposed just above, starting in the Republican Party as they promise to… I would encourage your fiance to launch her career in a sector of legal practice that promotes the newly ascendent fair-play crowd, and hastens the decline of the dirt-ball crowd.
@Boris:
Yes, Dollink, ve gots plenntie of real doozies! Sock puppets, plants, wingbats, moonnuts, meese-killers, and proponents of poetry so bad that it’s gorgeous (hi, buddy).
Yeppir. Y’all blow thru heah, any time, y’heah?
Sep 4, 2008 - 1:57 pm 66. fedya:Disclaimer:
If my comment just prior makes it past the filter as I expect it to, please permit me to clarify that I consider erstwhile Attorney-General Edwin Meese to be a great man, a capable barrister, and a fine Republican.
He was much unfairly targeted by the Left, hence my silly joke-by-inversion. I would not expect a McCain-Palin administration to target him for “K-Street Korruption” because I expect he lives far above it and would join in common cause with them.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:11 pm 67. jblog:And what Quinn, Dowd, Clift and the rest of their MSM cohorts JUST DON’T GET is that with every sneering, catty, shrill, shrieking, hysterical, sexist (yes, women can be sexist against other women) remark they make, they push more and more independent voters to the McCain/Palin ticket.
Because when soccer moms and angry white dads across America look at Palin, they see themselves. They say, “she’s one of us — she gets it.” And they know those attacks against her are attacks against them.
It’s the “bitter gun-and-religion-clingers” remark on steroids with a crystal-meth chaser.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:12 pm 68. tanstaafl:…the op-ed ravings of Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd, Eleanor Clift or Sally Quinn are any indication…
gyno-saurs
(h/t Michelle Malkin)
…she (Sarah Palin) could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become.
I think that’s already underway.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:18 pm 69. tanstaafl:Doesn’t the United States have more lawyers than all the other countries of the world combined ?
I rest my case
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:24 pm 70. Rcf:W says we are in trouble without lawyers- W is half correct we are in trouble when there is no respect for the law of the land. The lawyer class is destroying that respect.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:35 pm 71. stas peterson:There are only two American industries that the Democrats haven’t trashed and demonized in their “love” for America and her institutions. These are Big Law and Big Media/Entertainment.
Why? Because these industries produce people just like themselves.
People who practice and taught to prevaricate and lie.
A good tort Lawyer lets his side of the story out, and struggles miightly to prevent the balanced view or to deny the truth. And Hollywierd gives golden statues every year to the consumate Liar, and Lairess. People who practice to assume a false identity and deceive you of reality.
People who can convincingly persuade you that black is white, and night is day. After all that is great “acting”.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:40 pm 72. Roderick Reilly:“”"”"even as Joe Biden announced that when elected, he and Obama may well seek out Bush administration officials to try them for crimes!”"”"”
Obama has hinted at the same thing.
OK, let’s review:
Obama wants to start a whole host of new “Volunteer Corps” to “make us work” as his wife said. These “Corps” are something he may have been hinting at with his creepy pronouncement of wanting a whole new security force as large and well-funded as the Pentagon. Obama wants negative ads against him to be subject to prosecution. He and Biden want to try Bush people for “crimes.” Obama wants to give away $100 billion a year to other countries through the Global Poverty Act (please Google that one, folks).
What gives? I use to joke that Obama may be our “Hugo Chavez,” but, is it a joke anymore? Does anyone else get the feeling that the Obamas don’t like most of us much? Do you perhaps also sense that he and his immediate circle of temporarily-under-the-bus cronies want to punish us? He has said that we have been bad children for eating too much, having the thermostat up too high, and driving SUVs too much, and that we failed to get the world’s permission first. And why aren’t the Republicans making more of his grandiose and frightening schemes?
How many more clues do we need to connect all the dots? I, personally, don’t need anymore. What about the rest of you?
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:42 pm 73. RJ:I am tiring of the POW story, not that it is not relevant, rather I already know about it, as I suspect most Americans do too. What I want are the reflections and insights one gathers while submerged in the world of torture right next to the gates of death. This is when McCain became his own true man, independent, noble, etc.
Further, I want “frontier mom” Palin to engage with new thoughts, new lines of communicating her ideas and energies with us common folk during hunting season. This girl has learned much in the wilds of Alaska that transfer easily to urban cocktail parties.
No matter what happens, one should reflect on how dynamic the American people are, how infused we live our lives with the notions of what constitutes freedom. Not many other countries on this planet have as open and lively a political reality.
Where else could one see “high tech ambulance chasing” lawyers go to work as hard as these two buffoons must now do after being presented with a woman who can “hunt and shoot” with the best of men, then later, walk into a room as a woman who doesn’t hate men!
Mrs. Palin truly loves being a woman and loves the man in her life: How refreshing, a committed couple who truly care about each other and the children they have created.
As American as “apple pie” one would think. I sure do!
As for John McCain, this is his final act: Will he play it like a Shakespeare would write it?
I’m excited, finally. And it wasn’t the Democrats who energized my being.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:44 pm 74. stas peterson:Sarah Palin is married to an Eskimo Indian. John and Cindy McCain have adopted as one of their children a poor sickly (Indian) Indian daughter.
Your attempts to spin it as “the race card” is just an euphemism for raw racism. Pound sand leftist Democrats. You are all phony practicing racists.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:46 pm 75. Esteban Cafe:W:: So, lawyers are the grease in the cogs of society that keep it from tearing itself apart? To some extent yes; but, just like unions in days gone by, they have become predatory and, with a wink and a nod, play to the greed of the average American, echoing and magnifying the rapacity we all hold within. Some people mistake an accident for winning the lotto–and an attorney is the catalyst that deadens the conscience and plays mid-wife to our avarice.
I believe the Federalist Papers (no. 10) spoke about the factions that threaten our extended federal republic…and most of them are led by which calling? That’s right: lawyers.
So, before advising someone with a wit of self-examination from attending to the bar, best to reflect on your own conduct first: are you turning away the ‘wrong’ self-serving business or, like a mortgage broker, shrugging your shoulders and saying, “If I don’t take this business, the guy next to me will.” I love lawyers. Honest lawyers. I have love to spare.
Sep 4, 2008 - 2:50 pm 76. Mike:I think VDH hit on all cylinders today. BTW, Bush had higher grades at Yale than Kerry too.
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:22 pm 77. lee:I really don’t understand the notion that a “multicultural” ticket is inherently better than a white one. I’m Asian, I’m not voting for a minority candidate just for the sake of diversity. Issues matter.
Democrats find favor with most immigrants because they encourage their inferiority complex and victim mentality. Leftists tend to champion policies that artificially enhance or provide stop gap solutions for diversity (such as affirmative action), and that’s sweet as a love song to disgruntled minorities who habitually blame their troubles on the dominant racist / white / rich groups. Democrats win Latino votes because they’re lax on illegal immigration.
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:25 pm 78. Relevant Points by Victor Davis Hanson « Naught Relevant:[...] Davis Hanson Victor Davis Hanson nails it today. Read some below and the whole article here: Two [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:29 pm 79. tanstaafl:John and Cindy McCain have adopted as one of their children a poor sickly (Indian) Indian daughter.
Bangladesh. 1991
And there’s nothing poor or sickly about the 17 YO girl today.
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:30 pm 80. Self-hating boomer:Idiot. She’s been practicing for 30 years. And she’s quite good. I don’t think you want the misfortune of running up against her, or you’ll end up looking as pathetic as Joe Biden going against Sarah ‘cuda.
And she’s quite proud of the good things that lawyers do. She just recognizes that too many in the legislative and executive process crowds out other perspectives that are sorely needed.
Stop being such a victim.
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:35 pm 81. buzz:Wow. So you’re saying anyone who is a lawyer is the equal to “John Adams, Samuel Chase, John Jay, James Monroe, John Marshall, and Abraham Lincoln”? Who is the moron? Just because you have great men who happen to be lawyers does not mean that all (or most, or the majority, or some, or a few) lawyers are great men.
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:35 pm 82. Joseph Marshall:Okay, now we’ve seen Sarah Palin at her best, and her best is very good indeed. I have absolutely no doubt that she is ready to be on the national political stage. Period. I don’t think any fair minded person would doubt so.
So we can start now with real and fair criticisms:
“When a hurricane strikes in the Gulf of Mexico, this country should not be so dependent on imported oil that we’re forced to draw from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And families cannot throw more and more of their paychecks on gas and heating oil…we need to produce more of our own oil and gas. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: We’ve got lots of both.”
The entire 30 year output of the Trans-Alaska pipeline would keep us energy self-sufficient for all of 2 years. Nobody in the oil industry will tell you that ANWR has nearly the output promise of the Trans-Alaska fields, nor will they tell you that offshore drilling has that much production promise either. Nobody. This a promise of energy self-sufficiency that no one can fulfill.
“Senator McCain’s record of actual achievements and reform helps explain why so many special interests, and lobbyists, and comfortable committee chairmen in Congress have fought the prospect of a McCain presidency from the primary election of 2000 to this very day.”
Well, okay. But it would be really nice to know just what that McCain record of achievement and actual reforms consists of. Nobody who has spoken so far at the Republican Convention seems to be able to tell us that. Does anybody here know what it is? Fred Thompson didn’t seem to know. Nor Rudy Guiliani. Does Sarah Palin? Does anybody in the Republican Party? Does anybody in the country? Nobody seems to be able to tell us this. Not even John McCain himself. Well, maybe tonight…
“To the most powerful office on Earth, he would bring the compassion that comes from having once been powerless, the wisdom that comes even to the captives by the grace of God, the special confidence of those who have seen evil and have seen how evil is overcome.”
Fine. That having been said, let’s proceed to examine what she had to say about what a McCain/Palin presidency would actually and concretely do for this country.
“McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines, and build more nuclear plants, and create jobs with clean coal, and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources….”
And that is absolutely all Palin had to say about it. That’s it.
Now, of course, Rudi Guliani had a little more to say about it:
“John McCain will keep us on offense against terrorism at home and abroad.”
By doing what? Attacking the Iranian nuclear infrastructure? Invading Pakistan and wiping out the Taleban cells there? Expanding the size of the armed forces so people do not have to be exposed to combat for much longer than any American was in World War II? [On average about 3 months back then] Imposing a draft to do it? Anything at all more or better than what George W, Bush has already done for the past seven years?
No? Then let’s ask the question of you, John McCain, that we have constantly asked him: Where is Osama Bin Laden?
“John McCain will bring about the change that will create jobs and prosperity. Let’s talk briefly about specifics. John McCain will lower taxes so our economy can grow. He’ll reduce government to strengthen our dollar. He’ll expand free trade so we can be more competitive. And he will lead us to energy independence so we can be free of foreign oil. And — and he’ll do it with an all-of-the-above approach, including nuclear power, and, yes, off-shore oil drilling.”
Okay, Where will the money to do all this come from? George W, Bush cut taxes, cut them quite a lot, in fact. And to make up for the difference he has accumulated a debt of trillions of dollars, all of which has come directly out of the capacity of our economy to grow. John McCain doing more of it doesn’t sound much like change to me. And I haven’t seen our dollar get any stronger for it. In fact, its gotten weaker.
So lets look at cutting government. But be fair with us. What do you wish to cut? Military and Homeland Security spending [including the billions that never even get on the budget]? Medicare and Medicaid? Social security? The $300+ billion of interest on our national debt? We’d better not cut that, because we just might need to borrow some more again very soon. Unless, of course, John McCain proposes to stop borrowing at all and have America live within its means after repudiating all our prior debt.
Are you up for that John? You, Sarah?
As far as I can see, we’re trading pretty freely right now. Anybody here got any tariffs they still want to knock down? Has free trade made us more competitive than we were before? Not that I can see. But it has self-evidently made China more competitive through our trade imbalance with them. Look at the labels of all the stuff you buy at Target or Wal-Mart if you don’t believe me. Can you contradict this?
So where is the money going to come from to lay more pipelines, and build more nuclear plants, and create jobs with clean coal, and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources?
From the government? With what money? More borrowing?
From the private sector? This problem of dependence on foreign oil has been around over thirty years now and politicians, mostly, but not wholly, Republican, have been telling us that the private sector is going to do these marvelous things.
The last two rises in oil prices are the largest two transfers of wealth in the history of humanity. Bar none. Have you seen anybody in the private sector making concrete proposals to even increase the oil refinery capacity with it, let alone seriously fund “unproven” energy sources?
After all, if we drill baby drill, sooner or later we are going to have to refine baby refine. Why haven’t they built some more infrastructure to do it with? Can anyone point out where the oil industry has even started to do this?
You can tell me that my candidate is not ready for the call at 3 o’clock in the morning, that he didn’t sacrifice for his country like your candidate did, or that he wrote two autobiographies and authored no legislation, or even that he doesn’t talk about “victory” in Iraq, and I have no real problem with any of that. Let the people choose between them. It’s the American way.
But how can we exercise the American way when one of our parties has changed their convention site from St. Paul to Mars?
What has been said so far about what John McCain will actually do defies common sense.
And as for Sarah Palin, now that we’ve met her, seen her lovely family, and heard their story, we can get to the big question: Sarah, can you speak specifically, directly, and concretely to any national issue besides drilling for oil?
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:55 pm 83. lunacy:I love the way they want to dismiss women who favor Palin as uneducated. It’s the same way they want to dismiss conservative blacks or any other demographic group that strays from their narrow way of thinking. I don’t think they can honestly see the other side of the coin, so they denounce it as ugly. Flashback to Clarence Thomas.
I hold a masters and work among similarly educated women. Let me tell you, we are ALL thrilled with Palin, in part BECAUSE she strays from the reservation. She fearlessly represents us as the women of tomorrow, not NOW.
Sep 4, 2008 - 3:58 pm 84. nick:multi racial means mixed Genes from the family
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:20 pm 85. nick:not what adopted kid race is!
she has college degree, she is edcuated just as someone with fine arts degree,
which is useless for understanding the world.
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:21 pm 86. nick:shes is good lawyer at what ?
personal injury?
corporate contracts?
patent law?
yep , such a humane calling
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:26 pm 87. nick:5 years? G. Ferraro had 11 year as lawyer and then 6 years in Congress - thats 17 years IN NEW york city not wasilla AK
im tired of having to spend my time
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:29 pm 88. nick:countering your GOP lies!
You dont like attacks but you never counter with facts.
You are encouraged by attacks to donate but cant counter any of postualted facts?
palin is a lying corrupt book burning creationist
please go and donate more to such a campaign!
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:32 pm 89. Ron Kean:I used to bad mouth lawyers until my 1st wife’s 2nd husband intimidated me.
I paid a lawyer a hundred dollars to write a letter and my troubles vanished.
Just like that.
We can use lawyers.
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:46 pm 90. Anonymous Patriot:BHO got run over by a Zamboni driven by Palin!
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:49 pm 91. Terry Gain:During the chllenges of the past 7 years as the United States has assumed the burden of protecting the free world from the menace of Islamofascism, while being attacked from within, I have often looked to VDH for inspiration. It is disappointing therefore to see his gratuitous attack on lawyers.
Soldiers protect us from foreign enemies who would deprive us of life and liberty.
Lawyers are highly skilled profesionals who defend us from domestic enemies who would arbitrarily deprive us of our rights and property.
Unlike soldiers, lawyers do not risk their lives to defend us, but they do defend us.
The greatest thing about the United States is that it is a nation of laws. In America your rights are determined by laws not some dictatorial government or rapacious person or business corporation.
As frustrating as we lawyers might sometime be(too many of us are liberals) you can’t have the rule of law without lawyers. The Iraq war is in fact about whether Iraqis get to live under the rule of law rather than the rule of fascist men.
You don’t have a true democracy unless you have free enterprise and the rule of law. People who belittle the necessity of lawyers are pandering to those who, for whatever reason, can’t deal with lawyers.
Pandering to people who hate lawyers is stupid. We may not need lawyers as much as soldiers but we do need them as much as anyone including engineers, teachers, farmers, factory workers, fishermen, poets, writers, beauty contestants and even actors and journalists.
Everyone hates lawyers except the lawyer who is saving their ass. These attacks upon lawyers bothers me not at all but I do like exposing bullshit. I’m a very good lawyer. It’s why I have no use for Obama.
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:50 pm 92. Steve-o:Joseph Marshall,
Your questions are good ones, and you know the truth is that many of the points you raise can’t be solved by either party. They can only be managed and hazed a bit, like you haze a loose bull in a field with only your shirt as a tool.
Let’s give Sarah a bit of a break just for now, OK? She gave one introductory speech that wasn’t all that long. That wasn’t the time to be a policy wonk and attempt to cover every issue in the campaign. It was a chance to give us an idea of who she is, what makes her tick, and how she meets challenges. It was a chance for her to show she has no fear of the pundit class. She did rather well at all that. She and Biden can cover more details during their debates. Obama and McCain can do the same, and I am looking forward to it.
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:55 pm 93. Obama-con:To: Roderick Reilly
Absolutely dead on. I agree 100%. Obama the Con, if elected, is something to be feared. Not because of his race but because of his beliefs. Put the previous administration on trial, check. Create an internal security apparatus in the mold of the KGB (volunteer corp), check. Punish those who do not agree (prosecuting media outlets), check. Control over supply of food (eat too much) and fuel (keep our thermostats too high), check.
This is frightening. If this is THE CHANGE he speaks of, no freakin’ thanks. Hugo Chavez indeed. Next up…the suggestion of nationalizing an industry (Oil?).
Sep 4, 2008 - 4:59 pm 94. Jeff Perren:“After all, if we drill baby drill, sooner or later we are going to have to refine baby refine. Why haven’t they built some more infrastructure to do it with? Can anyone point out where the oil industry has even started to do this?”
In all the useful and sensible questions you raise, you should raise one more: who has stopped them being built?
The answer is: people with Barack Obama’s philosophy of government, chiefly his environmentalist supporters and the lawyers who give them teeth.
I say “No, thanks” to “more of the same?”
Sep 4, 2008 - 5:38 pm 95. Nancy Reyes:Re: Race card.
Palin is married to a Native American: Her husband is part Eskimo.
No one in the press seems to think that makes a difference, but it does.
Sep 4, 2008 - 5:52 pm 96. Tennesseefree.com » Enraging Team Obama:[...] -Victor Davis Hanson [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 5:56 pm 97. Tom:Joseph marshall - Point 1 - shes alreay told us more than the O; Point 2 - we would like to know that about the O - what we have heard about these issues leads us to believe he is a leftist radical; Point 3 - compassion, yeah yeah yeah; Point 4 - the O - NO DRILLING, and no optionds given except maybe plead with our suppliers; Point 5 - the O wants to get the h*ll out, d*mn the consequences; Point 6 - your life under the O will be more regulated, more taxing, and more international; Point 7 - we know where the money will come from , for the O - it’s YOU; Point 8 - the O - more government, more intrusion, more comittees, nothing about states rights and constitutional government; Point 9 - someone mentioned drilling and the price of oil dropped, someone said forget that and the price went back up; the O just had a convention and we still don’t have any idea what the change is - except he picked a 30 year biz as usual senator for VP - good luck to you.
Sep 4, 2008 - 5:56 pm 98. Alice Del Finterhof:Time to kick out Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and the other energy Luddites, and put in people a lot more like Sarah Palin–energy realists.
Democrats have chosen the far left lunacy of defeatism and economic/energy quagmire. Let’s put them on the bus out of D.C.
Sep 4, 2008 - 6:16 pm 99. Joshua II:It’s hardly a secret that virtually the entire legacy media is in the tank for Obama. Therefore they have a lot more riding on the outcome of this campaign than merely getting their man into the White House. If McCain wins, this becomes the legacy media’s OK Corral moment, with Sarah Palin as Wyatt Earp.
Sep 4, 2008 - 6:31 pm 100. mac:Mr. Marshall,
Well-written screed. However, you’re wrong about some of the most important issues, particularly the energy ones.
There IS refinery expansion going on in Louisiana and Texas, and quite a bit of it, actually. The key word there is “expansion” because both the oil companies and would-be investors know that managing to get the various permissions necessary to build a refinery on a greenfield site would take the majority of a person’s lifetime. Credit that to the over-the-top enviromental protection regulations the Democrat party has made the law of the land.
Same thing with nuclear power. Between the U.S.G. regulatory system and the NIMBY Democrat lawyers, the median time to construct a new nuclear plant would probably be in excess of 30 years. Intelligent investors do not want to wait 30 years for a return on investment.
IF we removed the cost of imported energy from our national balance-of-payments account, we’d be very close to breaking even with the rest of the world. The follow-on effects of such an event would probably put us back into the black very quickly.
Government has a MAJOR role to play in removing the obstacles to the construction of new energy facilities in this country. The Republicans are loudly proclaiming their intention of going full ahead; the Democrats are refusing to countenance anything but “alternative energies.” Guess who the American people are going to blame when we have brownouts, blackouts, and gas lines?
Ernest Bevin, Britain’s first post WWII Foreign Secretary, told complaining British coal miners after World War II that, if they would give him another million tons of coal, he would give them another foreign policy.
If we can get ourselves free of the addiction to imported energy, or at least chop it down to a considerably more reasonable size, we can free ourselves from having to be so concerned about what happens in the Middle East.
Moreover, we can also do a great deal in this country to improve many of the things that need to be worked on, such as the road/rail/electrical infrastructure.
Your party is standing in the way of advancing toward that accomplishment. Why? Is it the same reason your party was so anxious to see America lose in Iraq and Vietnam?
Sep 4, 2008 - 6:42 pm 101. TLM:Kudos to John McCain for picking Sarah Palin. His gut instinct in sizing people up is certainly better than Bush’s. Who owns the Change mantra now? And without “Change” all Obama represents is Hope. That’s not gonna’ fly in flyover country. In reality, Obama’s “Hope” relies on hopelessness, dissolute people waiting for a government handout to survive. Enter the woman from Mystery Alaska, small town America taking on the NY Rangers and the MSM. True grit writ large, and all that. For many Americans she might just symbolize the way forward, the embodiment of good old fashioned Can-Do-Spirit, a spirit still alive and well in clinger country. Never thought I’d live to see the day when a political party in this country sought to revive the Frontier myth. Where’s my checkbook?
Earlier this year I thought this election was going to be like ‘64. The Republicans lose and spend four years in the wilderness reinventing themselves. Then the Obama/Clinton drama made it seem like ‘68. Now I’m back to thinking of 1964, only this time it’s the dazed and defeated Dems wandering about the desert looking for the river Jordan, a chosen people no more, cast out for their idolatry, riven with dissension: the tribe of PUMA pitted against the Sons of Ham and their fanatic leader, Howard Dean.
If McCain wins this year, and Sarah Palin is the first woman VP, Hillary Clinton will own the Democratic Party. I’m sure she’s busy plotting her revenge.
A retread:
If urban America had a few more families like the Palins, they wouldn’t need “community organizers”, whatever the hell that is.
Sep 4, 2008 - 7:30 pm 102. Soccer Mom:Palin’s manifesto was impressive in presentation. I must say, however, that I was profoundly disappointed in her sarcastic and cynical remarks regarding community organizing. I have spent a good part of my life as a community organizer, be it PTA, soccer leagues, voter registration, or women’s support groups. Actually, I am sick at heart that she has apparently bought into the political machine that views voters as emotional reactionaries who will vote for the candidate with the sharpest tongue. I, for one, do not need a mouthpiece to fight my battles. I prefer to fight my own battles with other people of good faith who believe that together we can accomplish great things.
I base my life and my actions on the teachings and life of Jesus, the greatest community organizer of all.
Sep 4, 2008 - 7:40 pm 103. Minerva:Andrew Sullivan on McCain this evening:
He’s too impulsive, emotional and reckless…
Sep 4, 2008 - 7:43 pm 104. >bt: Post-Feminist Femininity:[...] the whole thing—Victor Davis Hanson identifies the crux of the cultural divide highlighted by the reaction to Sarah Palin: A beautiful, confident, articulate, independent, accomplished—and conservative—woman [...]
Sep 4, 2008 - 9:27 pm 105. Working Mom:To all you soccer moms - thanks for all you do, even if you are “lowly” community organizers. You are my heroes, doing the work that I can’t do because I am the sole support of my family.
Did you catch the press conference yesterday of Republican women who were angry because the “liberal” media were questioning Palin’s qualifications and background? In my professional experience, I have never expected not to be questioned just because I was a woman. Please…….. give me the opportunity to rise or fall on my own merits and don’t patronize me by expecting less of me than you would of any other candidate for the job. Can you say “gender card” ???
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:02 pm 106. Maimonatease:Today at P.J. Clarke’s tavern in NYC (3rd avenue and 53rd) I heard a man at the bar defending Palin against the concerted, frenzied attacks of half a dozen strangers. He obviously felt strongly about her, but the others - flinging all the same crap you so helpfully listed above - were getting the better of him. This struck me because, first, there was something more than unseemly in the words and tone used against him, and secondly, why would anybody in NYC be bothered to engage in a loud lunchtime debate about this? Everybody knows Obama will win New York by a landslide. Is a single Palin supporter in a room full of Obama fans such a terrifying thing? It just didn’t make sense. Unless. . .
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:24 pm 107. Rick 554:Totally agree with rachel. This Obama is a clear and present threat to our country. I’m gonna fight to keep my Grandsons from living in a marxist society. I will NEVER see the day we aren’t free.
Sep 4, 2008 - 10:29 pm 108. Pops in Vienna:Another great article doc. Keep ‘em coming!
I think Palin has given us a reason to vote FOR somebody. Until she showed up we were all praying that a sufficiebt number of conservatives would be scared sh*&less enough to get out of bed on election day and vote against Obama.
It’s interesting to hear what Peggy Noonan really thinks of Palin. Charles Krauthammer also wrote a very luke warm article about her today. I guess that shows you how out of touch even people on “our side” can be when they hang with metrosexuals and white wine drinkers. Of course, I doubt if Charles or Peggy have even been inside a Walmart.
McCain speech wasn’t a barn burner but after hearing about what he went through in Vietnam how can anyone in this country punch a chad for a community organizer?
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:03 am 109. Sakaki:Palin is good. Obama/Biden are morons.
What more do we need to know?
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:05 am 110. whiskey:Marshall’s problem is that since drilling will not solve the entire problem, do nothing and continue to buy oil from the Saudis and Co. Pathetic.
As for lawyers, the difference between then (Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, etc.) and now (Edwards, Obama, Clinton etc.) is the nature and process of how each group of lawyers built and kept electoral coalitions.
Jackson and Lincoln and other 19th Century lawyers were involved in lots of land disputes, which kept them close the concerns of ordinary land holders (and in Lincoln’s case, railroads). They understood the concerns of ordinary people and were able to create electoral coalitions that won. In Jacksons’ case, against the considerable powers of the Whig coalition of the big Eastern Cities.
Edwards, Obama, Clinton etc. for the most part come from grievance theater minority shakedowns, or other non-populist backgrounds. Clinton being the exception and thus his understanding, like Jackson and Lincoln, of the pressing concerns of ordinary people and the ability to turn that into winning electoral coalitions. You can’t understand the concerns of working/middle class white folks by agitating for government shakedowns in South Side Chicago. You’ll learn all the wrong lessons.
Harold Myerson believes White People should have no place in America:
“In a year when the Democrats have an African American presidential nominee, the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks’ party, the party that delays the advent of our multicultural future, the party of the American past. Republican conventions have long been bastions of de facto Caucasian exclusivity, but coming right after the diversity of Denver, this year’s GOP convention is almost shockingly — un-Americanly — white. Long term, this whiteness is a huge problem.”
Yes. America is 75% White. What a disaster! that this demographic reality is reflected in a major political party. And Multiculturalism has been so successful, in Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and Europe (home of the Car-b-que).
Thus the veil of Democrats is pulled — anti-White.
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:25 am 111. Rules For Republicans:“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates
the opposition, who then react to your advantage…”
Sarah Palin knocked out “Community Organizer” Barack Obama with “Community Organizer” Saul Alinsky’s Fifth Rule for Radicals: Ridicule. She reached past all the corrupt media and CLOWNED Obama before the entire world.
A convention center full of people LAUGHING OUT LOUD at the “career” and candidacy of the Democrat’s nominee. There’s nothing anyone at NEWSWEEK can do to undo that damage.
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:59 am 112. Joe Buzz:Thanks Doc. BTW just to kill some time tonight I watched a bit of TV.
Sep 5, 2008 - 1:15 am 113. steve:ABC had a smug little report from inside a Tom Delay party during the convention…..where was their footage from inside the big wig DNC fund raising party? Oh yeah, their reporter was cuffed and stuffed on the public street before he got near enough to film anyone. Compare and contrast, doubt we will see any of that. And they are the ones claiming hypocrisy.
Prof. Hanson
i read this at 5:40 AM Spain time- 11:40PM ET and there were something like 80 comments already. Now over 100. The level of interest is a tribute to your work.
Sep 5, 2008 - 2:16 am 114. RJ:Thanks.
Ok, there have been many comments on lawyers, so I thought we could go back more that 2300 years (get that?) and see what Plato had to present.
For your enjoyment…or despair!
WHO IS THE LAWYER?
Socrates Speaks:
“But the lawyer is always in a hurry; there is the water of the clepsydra driving
him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will: and there is his adversary standing
over him, enforcing his rights; the indictment, which in their phraseology is termed the affidavit, is recited at the time: and from this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is continually disputing about a fellow-servant before his master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands; the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but alwaysconcerns himself; (173) and often the race is for his life.
The consequence has been, that he has become keen and shrewd; he has learned how to flatter his master in word and indulge him in deed; but his soul is small and unrighteous. His condition, which has been that of a slave from his youth upwards, has deprived him of growth and uprightness and independence; dangers and fears, which were too much for his truth and honesty, came upon him in early years, when thetenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into crooked ways; from the first he has practiced deception and retaliation, and has become stunted and warped.
And so he has passed out of youth into manhood, having no soundness in him; and
is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom.
Such is the lawyer.”
Author: Plato
From: Dialogues of Plato, the Book of Theaetetus, The Great Books, volume 7, 1952 edition, pages 528/529
Sep 5, 2008 - 2:43 am 115. Terry Gain:Plato advocated that the state should determine whether people could have children and the state should raise children. I’m not sure whether this made him the first liberal or the first fascist.
When I first read Plato’s Republic more than 40 years ago I was horrified to think that he is regarded as a great philosopher.
Sep 5, 2008 - 3:53 am 116. Ed Wallis:Two other articles of note on the subject:
(moreso on Palin)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122057410046101771.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
and
(moreso on Zerobama)
Sep 5, 2008 - 5:17 am 117. Olivia:http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/obamas_tattletale_campaign_is.html
Palin and McCain are right on target. They come across as real down-home authentic people. Why does the Democratic Party have a hard time finding humble servants. Is it that hard. And Hanson don’t expect liberals to find anyone who has built, defended or created anything. They like their wordsmith intellectuals. The ones who solve problems with speeches and live in analysis paralysis. If they don’t like the marketplace, even better.
Sep 5, 2008 - 6:31 am 118. Peg C.:Those of us who know what and who we are will be no more fazed by charges of racism than Sarah Palin has been by the detestable and vile smears by the left and the media. Bring it on, Dems! You wanted a war, you’ve got one!
Sep 5, 2008 - 6:36 am 119. Christian bloggers on Palin, McCain, Obama and Biden | blogs4God:[...] overplay their hand, she might vote McCain. Mike and Gloria’s kids….. good question. Works and Days - Sep 4, 2008 - Target Palin …enraged Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire [...]
Sep 5, 2008 - 6:53 am 120. exDemocrat:Obama:
It’s the marxism, stupid.
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:03 am 121. Steve:Terry Gain: Funny post. Plato should be read as the liberal and Aristotle should be read as the conservative.
“I’m not sure whether this made [Plato] the first liberal or the first fascist.” It seems even plato must have had a liberal teacher. My nephew was a philosophy major and explained reading Plato to me. I asked if the instructor also had them read Aristotle. His reply was, with a grin, “Of course not, it’s college. I’ll read him during the summer.”
VDH should be kept in chains until he agrees to represent the people of America in the McCain presidential administration. He should have to take Bruce S. Thornton (see VDH web site) with him.
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:23 am 122. Valerie:Terry,
That’s what you get for reading the whole thing. Lawyers have a habit of reading the underlying documents, and then pointing out that somebody has ehhh, bent the truth a bit. Most people have real trouble handling that experience.
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:49 am 123. Jeff Perren:“Did you catch the press conference yesterday of Republican women who were angry because the “liberal” media were questioning Palin’s qualifications and background?”
To the contrary, no sensible person objects to the major news organizations exploring her (presently, little or incompletely known) positions on the environment, jihadist threats, Iran’s plans and how to deal with them, the credit crunch, home prices, and the economy in general, etc, etc.
All that should be explored, in depth. (Although let us remind ourselves she’s the VP candidate and the implications that she is going to take over the Presidency day 2 are absurd.)
But that is NOT what the media are doing, that is not what they are asking about are they?
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:50 am 124. Roger’s Rules » The Boston Phone Book, “Harvard,” and Sarah Palin:[...] trash,” eh? Clearly, as Victor Davis Hanson put it yesterday, “Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American intelligentsia” are acting [...]
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:58 am 125. tanstaafl:Thumbs up to Carl Pham’s dissertation on lawyers.
Especially on the role lawyers play in domestic disputes/divorce.
When the ABA recently put out a list of 9 or 10 praise filled points of how lawyers aid and assist in domestic matters, I laughed out loud.
Think (lightbulb goes on) it is the role of the lawyer to drag out disputes, thereby serving the prime mover in all manner of fractious encounters, the number of billable hours, at $200+ per hour. This number can get quite high, quite fast, meaning all is well in God’s paper filled, language parsed, convoluted domain.
Some prominent lawyers in the historical past are not, necessarily, the same breed as many today.
Sep 5, 2008 - 8:27 am 126. Cornhead:Gov. Palin’s performance is all the more impressive when considering the facts that:
1. The Teleprompter malfunctioned; and
Sep 5, 2008 - 8:45 am 127. Joseph Marshall:2. The total audience was 37,000,000 when the largest crowd she had addressed before was 700.
Steve-o and mac, thank you for your excellent replies. I took a gamble and posted on the VDH article to see if I would find a higher level of real discussion, and I have.
I’ll stand corrected on the refinery and reactor issues and I’ll give Sarah Palin a break–though I cannot see why anything that Rudi Guliani said couldn’t have shown up in Palin’s speech, if she’s been paying an ordinary citizen’s attention to the last eight years. It shows up very easily in comments here, including some that are not nearly as bright as Sarah Palin.
But the basic contradiction in what GWB has done for the past eight years and JMac is proposing to do now still remains. You cannot “make the economy grow” by absorbing so much capital into US Treasury Bills and expect any level of tax cutting, which will go largely into consumer spending, to pick up the slack.
This is so particularly when the safety of US Treasuries, bonds, and large cap stocks is so attractive. Capital going there simply doesn’t generate that much new growth. And tax cutting schemes skewed in favor of the wealthiest of us doesn’t generate that much consumer spending, either.
The ratio of our compensatory borrowing to the tax cutting of the past eight years is absurdly high. And this is what is acting as the drag on our growth.
There is perfectly objective evidence for this in the last four years of the Clinton Administration. I don’t want to get into an argument about whether or not Clinton “balanced the budget”, but he did slow the amount of US borrowing significantly, and, as a result, we had one of the greatest expansions of genuine prosperity for everybody at all economic levels, and new American enterprise, in the last fifty years.
These are objective, numerical facts. What shows up in McCain’s proposals simply flies in the face of these facts. Tax cutting under current conditions makes matters worse, not better.
And if you talk about “cutting government” instead of borrowing, you are essentially dishonest if you do not specify what you are going to cut and let the voting public see who will be the losers in the process. Because somebody will lose and we ought to have the right of majority vote ratification about who that will be.
Before you continue to say “the Democrats are refusing to countenance anything but “alternative energies”, I would recommend you go get a transcript and read what Barack Obama actually had to say in his acceptance speech. He simply does not say this.
As you can probably tell, I’ve done this with Sarah Palin and will do this with John McCain some time this evening. I am perfectly willing to read what they actually say, assume they mean it, quote it directly, and evaluate the policy consequences of it accordingly.
I think my candidate deserves no less.
And I must confess that I’m particularly frosted off by the issue of “will keep us on offense against terrorism at home and abroad” without any sensible specifics. I am a bipolar psychotic, and I work, when I can, in the Mental Health System of my state. I can tell you straight from the shoulder that we are starting to see the first stones of an avalanche of mental illness and substance abuse cases among returning veterans as a result of criminal over deployment in harms’ way.
John McCain should be no stranger to PTSD and he is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, so I’m certain he knows perfectly well what is going on. Has either he, his party, or his followers, and, particularly, all his veteran followers, even acknowledged the problem exists? Let alone addressed it in policy proposals? Talk of “sacrifice for country” is all very well, but any sensible ex-soldier should know that there are simply limitations to the human nervous system when exposed to chronic stress.
Best to you and I’ll look back by later if you wish to reply.
Sep 5, 2008 - 9:21 am 128. pappy:the msm (mud slingin maggots) claim they were reporting, not bashing mrs. palin. msm says the bloggers are to blame. i watched a lot of so-called news shows, and they sure fooled me. from the ratings it looks like they actually caused a groundswell of people to tire of their vindictiveness.
Sep 5, 2008 - 9:37 am 129. AlanC:Terry, “I’m not sure whether this made him the first liberal or the first fascist.”
A distinction without a difference.
Sep 5, 2008 - 10:30 am 130. jp:BMOON….”Obama this morning was bleating about his ‘community organizing’ credits him with more experience than Palin’s mayoral or governorship experience….
A few days ago he said that he had been campaigning for X number of months now, and that counts as more experience than Palin’s. He actually thinks that campaigning for President is the same as actual experience for the Presidency! McCain just laughed at him.
After the tremendous speech that Sarah Palin gave on Wednesday night, it was revealed that the teleprompter had not been working properly — it kept on rolling during the many times that she had to pause for all the applause, and it was then far ahead of the point where she was in the speech. But she kept going without a pause — and no ‘uh, um, uhh’ moments. Great speech, and great presentation.
>”BHO got run over a Zamboni driven by Sarah Palin”. If Sarah has watched BHO at all, she should have realized that you don’t run over someone with your vehicle….you throw them UNDER it.
Sep 5, 2008 - 10:49 am 131. Listen up, Soccer Mom!:Soccer Mom,
Did you listen to the entire speech, or just the sarcastic comment about “community organizers”? She has done MORE community organizing than Obama, including being a PTA mom like yourself, yet all they can do is impugn her record. She actually had to make decisions, and some hard ones. Obama? Couldn’t even decide on the issues and voted “present”.
It should make you heartsick that your pal Obama (and his camp) is so intellectually dishonest that he can’t admit she is more experienced than he is. His pick of Joe Biden, DC throwback extraordinaire, indicates that. Instead, you’re discouraged by sarcasm from Sarah Palin. I guess the sarcasm from Hillary, “Plugs” Biden, B. Hussein Obama, Matthews, Olbermann, Maddow, Dowd, Quinn, et al, don’t bother you.
Sep 5, 2008 - 10:51 am 132. Dave:(/sarcasm)
“white party”? I saw black people all OVER that convention floor, and they ALL were smiling and laughing and cheering Sarah Palin.
I’ll wager CNN’s camera shots were VERY different from Fox’s… because CNN had to shoot ‘around’ the black delegates, to make sure they never showed up on TV sets.
THis is SICKENING.
Sep 5, 2008 - 11:17 am 133. Reactions, Media “errors” and more | The Anchoress:[...] Sarah Scud-Missile?. I called her an “alpha female grizzly” in the wee small hours. 2:20 PM [...]
Sep 5, 2008 - 11:22 am 134. Jim in Alaska:Sharonsj said: “Prejudice against Eskimos? … Alaska has …tons of money from oil and gas, u… gives cash back to every Alaskan–except for Eskimos, who apparently don’t count….”
Uh Sharon, first it’s OUR money, the idea is that we the people know better how to use it than they the government. Hopefully Sara will take that idea to Washington.
Second Eskimos receive the same dividend checks as everybody else of course. Sigh.
Sep 5, 2008 - 11:23 am 135. James:You don’t see McCain and Palin evoking race because you refuse to acknowledge the coded references they employ to pander to cdertain reprehensible conservatives. When Palin offered the insight that community organizers lack responsibility, do you think she was talking about protesters outside abortion clinics offering free counseling to unwed mothers? Do you think she was referring to the membership of the National Rifle Association? Of course not. She was not referring to any of the right-wing community organizers that build the grass-roots organizations responsible for the election of Ronald Reagan and two George Bushes. No, she was using the term “community organizer” as code black activist. It was an appeal to race, and to the stereotype of poor blacks that underlies most of the social policies Republicans favor. You should know better.
Sep 5, 2008 - 11:44 am 136. Ed Wallis:Oh, “James,”
And YOU’RE the SEXIST because you mention BUSHES in your obscene post!!!
That’s a CODE WORD, y’know! /sarc
YOU FRAUD.
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:44 pm 137. Sarah Palin — The Blowback and the Instant Legend « New Wineskins:[...] Sarah Palin — The Blowback and the Instant Legend Beginning on a serious note we note the absolutely not to be missed, and always-good Victor Davis Hanson: [...]
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:47 pm 138. tanstaafl:J Marshall
Sarah Palin’s point about energy wasn’t that freeing up constraints on Prudhoe Bay/ANWR/North Slope oil and gas was going to solve our energy crisis.
Her point was that Alaska’s contribution to America’s energy production could be significantly heightened. Her further point is that said contribution could lessen our dependence on foreign oil.
The idea of lessening dependence on and involvement with unstable Middle Eastern regimes, primarily Saudi Arabia and Iran, and madmen like Hugo Chavez is very appealing to me.
Being held hostage, being held literally over a barrel, by unstable regimes with ideological intent to use oil as a cudgel to bring “the west” to its knees is something I’d like to avoid.
Realistic assessment augurs that our “dependence” on oil as an energy source isn’t going away anytime soon, despite already somewhat intense efforts to bring alternatives on line.
Your candidate, and his compadres in Congress, have in no way convinced me that they offer anything at all along lines of improvement of the status quo in this area.
When Sarah Palin says something is better than nothing, it resonates with me.
Sep 5, 2008 - 12:59 pm 139. tanstaafl:When Palin offered the insight that community organizers lack responsibility…
That’s not what she said. She said that a governor (even a Mayor of Wasilla) has major responsibilities, (as in managing budgets… making decisions affecting a large number of peoples’ lives…and the like.)
Hell, Obama’s spokespeople had been pounding on her lack of experience over several days. She doesn’t have the right to zing back on who has and hasn’t had (executive) experience and responsibilities ?
The reference to Sarah’s comment or observation on community organizers as “code language” is overly sensitive.
Even “ridiculous” which is the word Barack Obama used in mischaracterizing Sarah Palin’s take on community organizers.
It’s gonna be a long 2 months, eh wot ?
Sep 5, 2008 - 1:16 pm 140. TLM:James:
Bit of a stretch, don’t you think. Must be what they teach in law school nowadays. Three years of parsing words, now wasted on looking for racist code like it’s a self-replicating virus or something. More than 300K members in ACORN. Not all black, I believe. I’m not buying your argument. Keep looking for those racists and their code words, okey-dokey?
Sep 5, 2008 - 1:35 pm 141. Ron Kean:Joseph Marshall:
I question your use of the term ‘ criminal over deployment ‘. This is subjective since deployment times haven’t been deemed crimes.
Also, FYI, Professor Hanson was named after a family member who was killed in the Pacific and another, seriously wounded, stayed with his family after the war.
I only mention this to qualify the Professor’s opinions. They are from harsh experience.
I have no experience in the military personally, but may I assume that people volunteer to be policemen, fire fighters, and soldiers knowing the risks? As the VA struggles to adjust to new demands, hopefully we can take comfort hearing that the candidates of both parties are committed to giving the most to healing returning troops.
Sep 5, 2008 - 2:14 pm 142. nick:palin said we woudl have energy IDNEPENDENCE
that is a pipe dream by any side!
showing she is a typical politician promising what cant be delivered
Sep 5, 2008 - 3:35 pm 143. nick:managing budget?
Gov doenst manage the budget , dept heads do,
Sep 5, 2008 - 3:36 pm 144. nick:Gov just signs the budget.
with 23% blck at DNC
2% at RNC can be characterized as a white crowd.
just as flour with rat shit in it can be sold as white flour in grocery stores.
Sep 5, 2008 - 3:40 pm 145. Should we Surge in Chicago? Will it work Obamaramadingdong? Let’s Just Pull Out! « Truth, Lies and In Between:[...] From Victor Davis Hanson: [...]
Sep 5, 2008 - 4:13 pm 146. Freedom's just another word..:The latest absurd anti-Palin comment I saw was that Palin had an amnio test because she was thinking of an abortion.
First, a blood test is done. Alot of “problems” can be detected in the blood test, but a amnio provides more information. Perhaps the blood test was bad or inconclusive. So, Sarah Palin got an amnio.
The reason pro-life women are encouraged to get amnio tests is so the doctors and parents can know what they are dealing with. At birth, the doctors are prepared to give the newborn better healthcare. Also, the parents can get needed State assistance including healthcare, childcare, and disability program help.
The second absurd anti-Palin comment I saw was that Palin was in 6 schools in 6 years.
So what? Some people rise to the top in high school, some peak in college, and some peak after college. In fact, the most insightful man I know (who is a fabulous business man), failed out of a few colleges. Did Apple’s CEO complete college? I think this gives Sarah Palin even more credibility. There is nothing to suggest that she failed out of any of these schools, just that she bounced around. She has found her place, now.
The third absurd anti-Palin comment I saw was that the little baby is the 17 year old’s second child. The little baby is 4 months old. The 17 year old is and looks 5 months pregnant. It is highly unprobable that the 17 year old is the mother of both her unborn child and Palin’s 4 month old baby. Plus, it’s very rare for a 17 year old to have a Down’s Syndrome child…but, unfortunatly, not uncommon for a mother over 40 to have this child.
Sep 5, 2008 - 4:18 pm 147. jtoad:That’s why we honor their service, those in the military, law enforcement, public safety. Life is not fair, it comes with no guarantees, we don’t live in a video game with extra lives. So when people accept the risk of death, personal injury, profound mental consequences, and worst of all, disrespect from an ignorant sector of the public they protect, we owe them honor. Most of them know it isn’t going to be easy, most of them come from families with a tradition of service.
War and crime aren’t like video games either, with opponents faithful to rules or programming. It’s easy to talk about over-deployment, but under-deployment means soldiers die. Life is not a TV show!
Sep 5, 2008 - 4:33 pm 148. James:Sarah Palin said, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” That assertion clearly denotes that community organizers lack responsibility.
Of course it was a jab back at comments from Obama’s supporters that she lacks experience, but it was disingenuous. Barack Obama was an organizer when Palin was in college. He was a professor when she was a journalist. He was a legislator in a populous state when she was mayor in a town smaller than some of the churches in Chicago’s South Side (where he had been an organizer), and he was a United States Senator while she was Governor of one of the least populous states. She has “executive experience,” but he has a far more impressive resume.
Her slap at community organizers was also potentially a strategic mistake. The Republicans as well as the Democrats, the Green Party, Libertarians, and Ron Paul’s minions all count among their best supporters many folks that are community organizers, whether employed as such or volunteering their time.
Her delivery made one thing abundantly clear: whoever wrote the speech, she understood it, embraced its message, and was well in control of the nuances of meaning. The connotations from disparaging community organizing in an overwhelmingly black neighborhood is not innocent of racial subtexts unless the speaker is a naive simpleton. Sarah Palin is brighter than that.
Sep 5, 2008 - 4:48 pm 149. Joseph Marshall:Well, tanstaafl, I would repeat the question I asked above, Have you read a transcript of what Obama actually has said?
A transcript tangles no one up in showmanship or personality: empty rhetoric clearly shows up as empty rhetoric, substantial content shows up as substantial content, and specific detail shows up as specific detail. No mood lighting or stage design, no makeup, no crowd to boo and hiss the offstage villian, or clap and cheer the heroic [or the historic] candidate–just what the candidate had to say, so we can look at it and see if it makes sense.
If you’ve done this and remain “unconvinced”, fine. But if you haven’t, have you really given the alternate point of view a fair trial?
And, Ron Kean, as to “criminal deployment”, of course it is subjective. I said I was annoyed about it, to allow anyone who wants to discount it by that much. But it is an objective fact that we are placing men and women under combat stress far longer than our soldiers were ever placed in World War II [about 3 months on the average back then] and expecting them to bear up under it with the same levels of courage and commitment.
Many of the conscript grunts in ‘Nam went through nearly a full two years of service routinely in harm’s way, and we still didn’t adequately care for the resulting PTSD in thousands of them. Virtually everybody my age has at least one story of an acquaintence who returned a quivering, dangerous, paranoid wreck because of it.
Many of our “career” soldiers have been asked to do even more time than this because we have been fighting in two major theaters of war for almost seven years with not enough troops to rotate them out sensibly.
Worse than that, many of these men and women are not physically resilient 20 year olds. They are people in their 30’s and 40’s in NG units who are routinely losing livelihoods, careers, families, and homes, as their entire civilian life completely unravels under the strain of combat service lengths that no one ever dreamed backup “citizen solders” would be forced to face.
We are also armoring them and field doctoring them well enough to create a legion of the maimed [thousands of them now] on a scale unseen in this country since the American Civil War. And it’s really hard for the blinded and the amputated to ever have a nice day.
Ninety-five people out of one hundred who I hear so blandly blathering things like “victory in Iraq”, “see how well the surge worked”, and “keeping up the offensive at home and abroad against terrorism” are totally clueless about the toll it’s taking on the human beings who are being pushed to the farthest possible limits to do it, as well as on our country and our culture.
Worse than that, we have a government that for these last seven years has connived to hide these facts–the dead, the wounded, the maimed, the crazed, and the addicted–from sight for purely political ends. John McCain has been no “maverick” who has fought the sweeping of such lost and broken lives under the rug. In fact he has gracefully held the rug up for the sweepers, while in the Senate.
Now, partisan as I am, nothing would please me more than for someone to show me evidence that I am wrong on this point, evidence that somewhere, sometime John McCain has even acknowledged this problem. So I invite anyone who reads this to post such evidence on any active PJM thread where I am commenting from now until election day. I will be the first to celebrate it with you.
After then, of course, the issue will be moot.
Sep 5, 2008 - 4:56 pm 150. Ron Kean:Nick,
Sep 5, 2008 - 5:03 pm 151. TLM:Wrong blog.
Re James:
“The connotations from disparaging community organizing in an overwhelmingly black neighborhood is not innocent of racial subtexts…”
Obama has spent the majority of his adult life working in some capacity (community organizer, lawyer, legislator etc) in Southside Chicago. Your implication of racial subtexts would apply to any criticism of anything he has done — outside his 3 years at Harvard — for virtually his whole adult life. Nice try, but I’m not buying it. Obama’s the one touting his organizer years as an important credential for office of the president. Criticizing the relevance of that credential is perfectly reasonable.
Sep 5, 2008 - 6:08 pm 152. George Best:I still dont understand why all lawyers get put in with lawyers who are democrats. This lawyer is conservative, fights for justice, and stays in the private sector and works hard. Its the failed lawyers and those who never wanted to be lawyers that end up in politics, and the democratic party. I wish my fellow conservatives would quit bashing all lawyers. We always seem to be on speed dial when you need us.
Sep 5, 2008 - 6:44 pm 153. tanstaafl:Well, tanstaafl, I would repeat the question I asked above, Have you read a transcript of what Obama actually has said?
I have listened to Barack Obama through (as he noted yesterday) some 19 months of campaigning.
I have looked and looked and searched and searched for a viable “energy policy”, a concrete one, not one simply based in rhetoric about our need to wean ourselves off of oil and his vow to effect that within 10 years’ time.
The 10 years thing is somewhere between vapid and complete nonsense when it comes to replacement sources of energy for running our cars and factories and given that oil products are completely integral to so much human beings manufacture.
Nancy “I’m trying to save the planet” Pelosi has been hugely obstructionist in even allowing any kind of “energy plan” to come to the House floor for a vote. She has, however, said that Barack Obama was given to us by…are you ready ? G-O-D
Point me to the above referenced “transcript” J Marshall, I am craving specific and realistic information on this topic.
Let the scales fall from my eyes !
Sep 5, 2008 - 6:53 pm 154. tanstaafl:It would be Barack Obama himself who would make an argument in favor of dispensing with the whole “racial subtext” claim.
He has vowed to be our “post racial” guy, only he (like James) keeps bringing it up and up and up.
Black Liberation Theology, the Reverend J. Wright, the Reverend Pfleger, Louis Farrakhan…where would all these folks be if they just dispensed with the whole racial subtext thing and simply got on with it ?
As it is, with all the “community organizers” and outreach in the city of Chicago, the number of people shot dead in that city over the summer is more than double the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.
A gruesome statistic either way, but (recently reported as) factual, nonetheless.
And why did all that industry (esp., reportedly, steel) leave the area, leaving Chicago in desperate straits, making it necessary in the mid to late 1980’s for Barack Obama to attempt to organize an impoverished, jobless community ? Would it have anything to do with permanently corrupt Chicago governance or industry fleeing because of hyper taxation?
Barack Obama’s chosen milieu in which to “come into” his own as a prominent politician is that selfsame Windy City.
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:19 pm 155. James:TLM, I’m not claiming that Palin’s criticism was unreasonable. I’m challenging the notion that Republican rhetoric is free of racial content. I am also criticizing the slap at community organizers who work hard with responsibility on all sides of the political spectrum. I appreciate the dark irony that a Reagan Republican would intimate that elected public officials have responsibility that community leaders lack. Palin’s statement is at odds with her professed political philosophy. Palin exhibited masterful skill in her use of satire, but this one got away from her.
Sep 5, 2008 - 7:40 pm 156. Jeannette:I think it’s time to make a concession to the Democrats; their nominee for President of the United States IS approximately as qualified as the Republican nominee for Vice-President, maybe even slightly more qualified!
Community Organizer vs. PTA president
State Representative vs. mayor of a large town
Senator vs. Governor
They are similar in age, and married with children.
Yeah, I think it’s time to admit that Senator Obama is approximately as well-qualified to be vice-president of the United States of America, as Sarah Palin is.
Sep 5, 2008 - 8:06 pm 157. ThomasJ:I’m just glad that America FINALLY got to see what an authentic strong woman is. Stunning on all levels!!
Sep 5, 2008 - 8:26 pm 158. GB:And those pundits on public television are pissed!! They have that look on their face like the puppy died. I certainly hope the average American finally sees these dirtbag co-conspirators for what they really are. I hope president McCain shuts their asses down, via veto.
Finally! The brilliant satirist, Iowahawk, has explained exactly what a community organizer (?) does:
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/09/when-americas-c.html
Sep 5, 2008 - 8:28 pm 159. TLM:A few notes on the RNC Convention:
The XCEL Energy Center was a great venue. Used to love watching the Minnesota Wild play there when I lived in the Twin Cities. MN high School hockey championships are televised every year. Big Event. Occasionally, a team from a small town up North (eg. Rosseau, pop. approx 2,000) upsets a glamour team from the cities in the finals.
The Sarah Palin barb about the Great Community Organizer was very effective, a Parthian shot that Obama & Co rode right into. Does he really want to compare his record with hers? They’re not exactly vying for the same job.
“We face many threats in this dangerous world, but I’m not afraid of them. I’m prepared for them.” Good line by McCain. Dangerous world? True of course, but “I’m not afraid…” nullifies the fearmonger angle.
McCain speech — good enough. Palin speech — great. Wild West music at the conclusion Thursday night — perfect. John McCain, the last man standing. Sarah Palin, ready (with a little OJT) to step into his boots. Game On, Dems.
Sep 5, 2008 - 9:03 pm 160. Jeff Perren:“The Republicans as well as the Democrats, the Green Party, Libertarians, and Ron Paul’s minions all count among their best supporters many folks that are community organizers, whether employed as such”
Name three, unless by “community organizer” anyone who organizes anything in his or her community. In Chicago, the title has a much narrower meaning, and it isn’t a pretty one.
Sep 5, 2008 - 9:08 pm 161. god:Dave: get your numbers right. You must be very sharp-eyed. There were 36 blacks at the GOP convention floor.
Dis you hear the late night show joke that the GOP floor looked like Alaska? It was all white . . .
Sep 5, 2008 - 10:11 pm 162. BRussell:Obama wants to kill babies and raise taxes.
Palin wants to kill taxes and raise babies.
Sep 5, 2008 - 10:21 pm 163. Ed Wallis:Mr. Marshall,
MANY, including McCAIN, acknowledge that of which you speak:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4fe9GlWS8
Sep 6, 2008 - 3:09 am 164. Never Yet Melted » “Harvard” Hates Palin:[...] trash,” eh? Clearly, as Victor Davis Hanson put it yesterday, “Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American [...]
Sep 6, 2008 - 4:49 am 165. Freedom's just another word..:Bridge to Nowhere?
The media is reporting that Palin flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere and never sent back the money. Mayor Bob Weinstein of Kethikan, Alaska is at the heart of these stories.
Bob Weinstein is Alaska’s longest serving mayor. He is also a Democrat who has a BIG AX to grind against Palin on this fabled Bridge.
On May 12, 2008, the Juneau Empire newspaper reported:
Ketchikan’s mayor, angry about the loss of the city’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” is accusing the Juneau-based Department of Transportation and Public Facilities staff of bias against his project and being in favor of the Juneau Access Project. “It has been obvious to me for some time that the Southeast Region of DOT has an emotional commitment to the Juneau Access Project, and has been driving the project forward through the use of what appears to be inaccurate, incomplete and/or misleading information,” wrote Bob Weinstein, mayor of Ketchikan, in a March letter to DOT Commissioner Leo Von Scheben.
The Kethikan Mayor Weinstein wanted the bridge. Palin stopped his bridge. He is on the warpath.
Sep 6, 2008 - 6:02 am 166. tanstaafl:You can read up a little more on the background of ACORN and the nuts and bolts of how such kinds of “community organization” work.
…Obama’s community organizing days involved training grievance-mongers from the far-left ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).
You might come out of it with a slightly more jaundiced eye. Obama’s longstanding association to Bill Ayers and the mechanisms and targets for dispensing money during the Annenberg Challenge aren’t much prettier.
And don’t you even think of entertaining the possibility that The One exploited a nonprofit supposedly focused on helping low-income people for political gain.
Sep 6, 2008 - 7:22 am 167. Joseph Marshall:Now come on, Ed. Did you read what I actually said? I wasn’t talking in the least about the value of what we are doing in Iraq. Barack Obama has been man enough to acknowledge that the “surge” has had success and he even did it to Bill O’Reiley on Fox News!
I was talking about acknowledging the genuine human cost to America of doing this without actually being ready to do it for seven full years. McCain’s commercial doesn’t address this in the least.
Nor has he so far as I can determine. And if I’m wrong, he’s better qualified for being President for having done so.
Sep 6, 2008 - 9:03 am 168. Joseph Marshall:By the way, I’ll be back on the transcripts later. I think my whole post on it got blown into hyperspace by YouTube.
Sep 6, 2008 - 9:05 am 169. geokstr:Joseph Marshall:
Despite anything He may have intimated (depending of course on who He was talking to and when), if you really believe that if The One gets in power, we will ever have any drilling ANYWHERE, I want some of whatever it is you’ve been smoking. And the worst thing is, if McCain/Palin gets elected, we won’t have any meaningful amount of drilling either.
Why not?
Because of the cumulative legislative and regulatory effects of the left’s pandering to extreme environmentalists for 40 years, that’s why, combined with a very large coterie of fanatical members of the legal profession who have chosen to specialize in this area.
Even if, wildly supported by 75% of the American public from both parties, McCain could somehow push through a bill removing all restrictions from drilling everywhere, it would do no good whatsoever. There is an enormous amount of anti-fossil fuel bias buried in hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations at all levels of government by now, and it will be nitpicked to death by armies of environmental lawyers. Between legal challenges to environmental impact statements and massive regulations restricting every tiny detail of any actual like, you know, drilling, the left can tie up any proposed exploration, extraction and refinement for decades.
The reason it takes thirty years from application for permit to completion of a nuclear plant has absolutely nothing to do with actually building the damn thing. That could be done in a couple years - TOPS, if we really wanted it to happen. Safely too -the technology has been vastly improved since the phony “disaster” that wasn’t at Three Mile Island. I certainly haven’t heard of any Frenchmen glowing in the dark recently, despite getting 80% of their power from nuclear.
The rest of the time is spent arguing in front of carefully venue-shopped liberal justices over whether the habitat of the beer-bellied, brown wingtipped furbish lousewort is threatened, despite the fact that the only people who have ever seen one in the wild are the lawyers for the Sierra Club. There will be years-long legal battles over whether the screens on the washroom ventilation systems are adequate to filter the air so that the employees will be subjected to no more than one-millionth the dosage of natural radiation commuters get from the granite walking through Grand Central Station. Lefties in every state will fight having repositories of spent fuel located in their states, and their counterparts in every state between the proposed plant and every proposed storage site will tie the transportation system in knots over everything from tanker-truck design to shipping routes to road lane width. Finally, after 30 years of battles, with the ribbon-cutting in sight, Erin Brokovitch will come out of retirement to make up some more statistics as fake as her cleavage, while the public is subjected on all channels to a barrage of reruns of the god-awful “China Syndrome” and the plant will be abandoned.
EXACTLY the same thing will happen to any drilling under either administration.
And also, precisely how is it that you know that the only oil available from Alaska is from the North Slope and ANWR? Energy companies have been prohibited from even looking for it outside those two tiny areas. I’d say it is far more likely that there is a LOT more there, given that Alaska is as big as the entire Western US, and around the world, where we have already found lots of oil, there’s usually lots more nearby. We haven’t even considered off-shore Alaska either, and given that pretty much everywhere else we’ve looked offshore, there’s oil by the billions of barrels.
That does not even include the 35 trillion cubic feet in known reserves of natural gas from just the North Slope of Alaska.
China is working with Cuba, for crying out loud, to drill off OUR coast, and we won’t even let ourselves do it. How insane is that?
Of course that won’t solve the long term energy problem, where everyone has a house made entirely out of 100% efficent solar cells, with a cold fusion fridge, and two fuel-less cars propelled by perpetual motion machines, but for an indefinite transition period, we have absolutely no choice but to rely on the fuels that now support our entire economy. Wishing we could have the infrastructure and technology of our dreams does not make it so.
Until then, I would rather not have to buy our fuel at outrageous prices from unstable countries run by stone-age illiterates who hate us, and will continue to do so, even after the Messiah is selected and parts the waters to go to them, hat in hand.
Sep 6, 2008 - 11:29 am 170. 4got10one:Thank you, Dr Hanson! You do no know how grateful I am to have your brilliant mind available to my considerably smaller one.
Sep 6, 2008 - 12:51 pm 171. Doug:the main thing is the issues, not the personalities. I want the counterpoductive wars to end. and i want the middle class to thrive. the democratic party is ready work on those issues. the republicans are killing america. everything else is just noise.
Sep 6, 2008 - 2:17 pm 172. pappy:b-ho: running for community organizer in chief, could make history as first bi-racial man to hold office. also one for the history books, the number of lemmings that would have voted for him.
Sep 6, 2008 - 3:04 pm 173. Joseph Marshall:Transcripts, tanstaafl? I think we can do that for you. I find a little site called Google to be very helpful in such cases. I used the following keywords:
transcript barack obama acceptance speech
And I turned up these–
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28text-obama.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94087570
http://www.demconvention.com/barack-obama/
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/the_full_text_of_obamas_speech.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/28/barack-obama-democratic-c_n_122224.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/28/obama.transcript/
http://conservablogs.com/velvethammer/2008/08/29/barack-obamas-dnc-acceptance-speech-full-transcript-video/
Now I did my bloody level best to make sure that at least one of these sources was one you wouldn’t feel the need to rent a lead apron to go visit. It is the last one. I had to get all the way to the bottom of Google page 2 to find a conservative blog with the 14 carat chutspah to post an adversary’s transcript, but I found one.
[MEMO TO: PJM editorial board—One of the reasons that the Mainstream Media ARE mainstream is that they do things like post transcripts. You ought to consider posting them, too. I'm certain it would improve the level of discussion on your comment pages, and might bring in a few more readers who would prefer not to get the information from NYT, NPR, CNN, and all the rest of the alphabet soup you call MSM.]
I repeat what I said above. If after reading what Obama actually has to say you remain “unconvinced”, so be it. And if you don’t feel that you can extend him the courtesy of assuming he means what he says, so be that, too.
I am old enough to have been watching television on a bitterly cold January day when a man committed the United States Of America to putting a man on the moon within a decade. Not many people thought it was truly possible, but we did it, and nobody else has done it since, it’s that hard.
He was one of the “greatest generation”, as were my parents. They did hard stuff like that—lots of it. I’m perfectly certain that had they needed to eliminate dependence on foreign oil within a decade, they would have done that, too.
After all, they thought America was the greatest and most capable country on earth.
Sep 6, 2008 - 4:50 pm 174. TLM:Obama’s looking a little rattled, and clinging to his “Change” mantra for dear life. He knows, if he loses the Bringer of Change appellation, he’s toast. And McCain/Palin have what it takes to usurp that title. It’s also possible voters are starting to realize that, other than bringing to Washington the generic Democratic Party platform, which Hillary or any other Dem could do this year, the change Obama represents is otherwise superficial. Window dressing. Skin deep. That’s the problem with running on rhetoric without a record. No fall back (unless he plays the race card, again). He has reason to be worried. In November he may become the Bringer of Pain, to the Democrats.
Sep 6, 2008 - 5:23 pm 175. TLM:A retread:
Earlier this year I thought this election was going to be like ‘64. The Republicans lose and spend four years in the wilderness reinventing themselves. Then the Obama/Clinton drama made it seem like ‘68. Now I’m back to thinking of 1964, only this time it’s the dazed and defeated Dems wandering in the desert looking for the river Jordan, a chosen people no more, cast out for their idolatry, riven with dissension: the tribe of PUMA pitted against the Sons of Ham, they who continue to worship the Golden Calf. For years the Dems wander aimlessly, searching for the promised land known as Kansas. Their Moses, Howard Dean, shown to be a false prophet, is ignored. The Ark of the Constitution fails to provide succor and is discarded. Their Covenant with the American people now utterly broken, the godless ones cry out in their misery: Apres nous, le desert. It is all they see…it is all they know to say. In the prosperous towns and cities no one hears their voice. And no one cares, either.
Sep 6, 2008 - 7:05 pm 176. Javelin:Dr. Hanson, you have truly cashed out any professorial, intellectual respect I had for you now that you are just another GOP talking head, full of cheap generalities. BTW, Palin did admit to smoking pot and if some democrat had a pregnant teenage daughter, I’m sure some of the right would be attacking her as part of the porn belt or future welfare mother. I just love how all the Republicans are playing the usual phony gentlemen by rallying around Palin and insinuating any criticism of her is not just liberal elitism or sexism, but an attack of God too.
Sep 6, 2008 - 10:17 pm 177. Javelin:Joseph Marshall,
Sep 6, 2008 - 10:22 pm 178. Javelin:not to mention the Iraqi civilian and other dead from the war, about 200K plus. For a bunch of people who claim that Christianity and pro life is the moral and ethical goalpost for them, how do they expalin that almost every Christian leader including the Pope, save a few Pat Robertson egomaniacs, opposed the war. But while we are already there, let’s at least win I say
“Then there are the op-ed writers weighing in on cue, like Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatima Ali”
Sep 6, 2008 - 10:27 pm 179. Pops in Vienna:A Nation of Islam operative, like she speaks for all of liberals or even blacks. This is the kind of stuff I’d expect from some simple minded blogger not a professor. But maybe that is my elitist taste, from a guy who is working on a line.
Hey Doc,
Just the fact that Palin has generated so many comments here is a good indication of much she has inspired the conservative “base”.
Win or lose, her candidacy has shaken things up. One of the unintended consequences has been the unexpected reaction of so many conservative pundits. Mike Savage thinks she’s a trailer trash bimbo, Dr. Laura think she’s an unfit mom, Peggy Noonan thinks the Republicans have blown it and Dr. Krauthammer can’t make up his mind.
I wonder who the aforementioned would have supported; Romney, the Mormon, three times married Rudy, Baptist preacher Huckabee, former Democrat Joe Lieberman? All of these white guys would have generated controversy but none of the excitement Palin has. Jindel might have been a good choice, but wouldn’t have been interesting to have him making an acceptance speech while his state was being hit by a hurricane.
We should count our lucky stars that Palin has agreed to accept the nomination.
Sep 7, 2008 - 5:17 am 180. RJ:Over 170 comments! Wow!. And those of you who wish to drill drill, and drill…I’ve got a newsflash for you.
Lawyers, or those who went to law schools, are overpopulated in our Congress (in my opinion). See my earlier posting on Plato’s thoughts written over 2300 years ago.
So, when the legislation is created to “drill more” my betting will be on the small print, and outside law firms. That is, a great ball of string will be created upon which lawsuit after lawsuit will arise to “delay any drilling for years” as intended from day one.
Anybody want to take this bet? Odds?
Sep 7, 2008 - 5:54 am 181. Joseph Marshall:I would just like to remind the general company of something. From 2002 to 2006 the Republican Party was largely in control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Presidency. After 2004 they were completely in control of it and they had their views and their policies explicitly ratified by a clear popular majority.
In America political power doesn’t get any better than that. It was the greatest one party dominance of government since 1964, Lyndon Johnson, and The Great Society.
There is absolutely no reason why they could not have made the so-called Reagan Revolution complete, permanent, and well-nigh irreversible. The golden political opportunity of the new century was their’s.
And, for the bloggers and the regular readers here, it was your golden opportunity to pester them into it from the bully pulpit. What did you spend your time doing? You spent your time “Selling The Mainstream Media Down The River.”
Nobody had the nerve, nobody had the will, nobody had the willingness to do some hard thinking and real work, nobody had the vision, nobody had the least sense of effective political tactics, and nobody had the brains to use that golden opportunity.
Ronald Reagan, the only conservative office holder in my lifetime who had any of these, was long gone.
From the First Dude in the Oval Office, the Second Dude advising him from an undisclosed location, to John McCain busily being a maverick running away from being rolled and roped and branded on the Senate floor, nobody had any of it.
They had as much power as anyone will ever have, short of an authoritarian revolution here. What did they do with it to solve our energy dilemma?
Dead flat nothing.
The same power starved louts who are grandstanding on the House floor were warming chairs in it all through the golden opportunity. John McCain was warming his chair in the Senate shmoozing, wheeling, and dealing with the other 99 club members.
If you turned back the clock and put them all back in power again, they wouldn’t do anything about it, either.
Why? Because America is the cash cow for multinational oil companies. Our demand is inelastic, the supply is cartelized, and growing competition for the supply from nations like India and China has been carefully cultivated for the past 15 years.
They didn’t have to do anything but rake in the profits, toss some perks to the Republican Party [and only to the Republican Party--Newt Gingrich saw to that], and buy some prime time TV whenever necessary telling us what great guys they were. Why should anybody do anything to upset a cushy arrangement like that. I wouldn’t if it were me, would you?
Can Barack Obama and a 60 Senate seat Democratic congress be persuaded to do any better? I don’t know. But I think they should be given the chance to try. Obama clearly has the brains for it. Anybody who can write his own speeches that well has them. But whether he has the rest of it will only be known if he’s given the chance to use it.
But then I’m partisan, right?
Sep 7, 2008 - 9:44 am 182. tanstaafl:Transcripts, tanstaafl?
Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, you were going to provide me with a “transcript” lining out Barack Obama’s energy policy.
You were supposed to provide me with specific proposals (hopefully succinct) of Barack Obama’s plans for America’s energy future.
Sep 7, 2008 - 11:38 am 183. tanstaafl:It seems that Barack Obama plans to use the machinery of the federal government to effect the “change” he was unable to bring about as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980’s.
But he better not squeeze the top 10% of earners too hard
Who already pay 70% of federal income taxes
or the federal government might run out of money.
And we all know what a crying shame that would be
Sep 7, 2008 - 11:48 am 184. Joseph Marshall:I don’t think I need to repeat what I said to you a third time tanstaafl. You’re clearly not listening. If you’ve read them I’m perfectly willing to concede that you’ve given Obama a fair hearing. I never expected you to be convinced by them, particularly.
I was pointing out a method that I think gets a better grade of political discussion: taking real political adversaries seriously enough to read what they have to say and do, rather than indulging in a pointless Punch and Judy show where you bop straw filled marionettes like “the left”, “liberals”, “Pelosites”, ect.
I think the length, the overall quality, and the depth of discussion on this thread, including your own contribution, is self evident testimony to the power of the method.
Sep 7, 2008 - 1:26 pm 185. James:The Wall Street Journal offers a different sort of assessment of Palin’s dis of Obama:
“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” Ms. Palin said Wednesday in her acceptance speech at the Republican convention.
Litigation resulting from the dispute over Ms. Palin’s sports-complex project is still in the courts, with the land’s former owner seeking hundreds of thousands of additional dollars from the city.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122065537792905483.html
Sep 8, 2008 - 7:09 am 186. schnargley:Maybe we really do need two lawyers at this time. Lawyers understanding the importance of words and Obama-Biden will surely use words with devastating effectiveness as our nation’s leaders.
It will greatly help with our foreign relations. Obama has openly stated that he would dialogue with many of our enemies with no preconditions. This is obviously a brilliant tactic on his part. He would tie bin Laden or Ahmadinejad in rhetorical knots without even thinking on his part. And can you imagine Putin, Kim Jong-Il, or Hamas chatting with Biden for a couple of hours? Ha! They’d sign anything.
But the even greater benefit is on the domestic front. Obama understands that the Constitution cannot be bound in some archaic 18th century Enlightenment mold, that it is a fluid document. As a Harvard-educated intellectual, he understands Chomsky, that words themselves are wonderfully flexible and adaptable to our times and cultural changes.
Lawyers are generally smarter than the rest of us, and this is why we need two lawyers running things. The world is a far too dangerous and complicated state right now. I want two lawyers to come in and tell me how to untangle the mess.
Sep 8, 2008 - 9:11 am 187. always right:Joseph Marshall:
After all, if we drill baby drill, sooner or later we are going to have to refine baby refine. Why haven’t they built some more infrastructure to do it with? Can anyone point out where the oil industry has even started to do this?
I only have a layman’s explanation.
An oil company intends to build new refineries to expand capacity. After negotiation, compliances to satisfy local, state, and federal governments’ rules and regulations (how long is the estimate?), the investment has been made, a new plant has been built, how long does it take for the company to recuperate its initial investment? Well, from the plan of proposing a new refinery to make even profit probably takes more than 10 years.
During which time, government changed hands and the POWER-in-charge decides on a witch-hunt: not only you are branded EVIL, they also self-righteously decide to tax ‘windfall profit’ (whatever that means).
Sure you could build your refineries in other countries (for example, China, anyone?). But then you run the risk of China pulling a Hugo Chavez.
Do you wonder why there is no plan?
Sep 8, 2008 - 1:15 pm 188. always right:To anwer my own rhetorical question,
I get the drift that Democrats want to ‘nationalize’ the oil industry, ‘nationalize’ healthcare and health insurance industry.
If you think that is a viable solution to all problems, I have this cat that lays golden eggs for sale.
Sep 8, 2008 - 1:23 pm 189. EckerNet.Com » Blog Archive » Deep Thoughts With Kevin - The Sarah Palin Edition:[...] Wow…the hypocrisy that is the Palinomania that has struck the libs. When Palin talks about her present life it sounds as authentic as Biden’s showy populism came off as false. Enraged feminists are apparently the gatekeepers for less well-educated American women, who are supposed to have 0-1.5 children not 5! Their husbands must be professors, lawyers, CEOs, editors—not snowmobile champions, union members, oil workers, and fishermen—or, worse, all in one! And unlike a Pelosi, Quinn, or Clinton, Palin, God forbid, did not rely on a powerful, wealthy husband or father to energize her career. Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose. The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become. [...]
Sep 8, 2008 - 9:07 pm 190. Joseph Marshall:“how long does it take for the company to recuperate its initial investment? Well, from the plan of proposing a new refinery to make even profit probably takes more than 10 years.”
All I can say to that is that these companies have been swimming in a larger pool of pure profit than has been seen in all of World history, without having had to do anything.
Since they already have profit on that scale, they have the means to recapitalize and build more capacity with the eye to profitable production in decades when I will no longer be alive, let alone on a ten year timeframe.
But there is absolutely no incentive to do this, or to do this on a scale which would support even the amount of oil that is actually in the ground and would come up from it if we put oil wells all the way up to the White House Rose Garden.
They are swimming in so much money that they even could do it purely as a matter of public spirit and the public interest in support of all those fine people who want to see that many oil wells.
Fifty years ago and more American corporations actually did such stuff. If they hadn’t, we would never have won the largest war the world has ever known. Because that’s how we did win it. It was not our generals, it was not the clear superiority of our weapons [they really were not always the best in the world], it was the sheer scale on which we could turn out military equipment and the large population of fighting men we could fill it with.
Sep 8, 2008 - 9:35 pm 191. Jeff:For a more compelling look at Sarah Palin, please take a look at this link below—
http://howinsaneisjohnmccain.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-scandals-complete-list.html
Sep 8, 2008 - 10:40 pm 192. James:Jeff,
At least half of the allegations in that list of “scandals” have been investigated and shown to be unfounded. See
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
http://www.factcheck.org/
There’s enough in her actual record to highlight without needing to perpetrate false claims that she’s part of a secessionist movement or slashed by 62% funding that she actually increased. Democrats well understand that her views are opposite theirs on issues from abortion to the ANWR, while Republicans should be concerned about her penchant for raising taxes.
Sep 9, 2008 - 10:18 am 193. nick:thats why I only post she is a lying, book burning creationist. 3 facts.
Sep 9, 2008 - 9:01 pm 194. dom pasquali:PALIN / PLUMBER 2012!!!!! Real USA!!!! real USA!!!Look at these posts posts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A JOKE! THAT COCKY, LYING, BIMBO IGNORAMUS LOST!!!!!! Sorry, left oout “diva,” and “wackjob” thanks, Mr. Selzer.
Can any of you admit how wrong headed you were in these ludicrous comments!!!??
Nov 20, 2008 - 7:08 pmThe biggest joke in the history of major party presidential politics. (Well…. I might give you Thomas Eagleton, to be fair.)
You betcha!