Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
What do you do when the person who matches you in the external identity calculus — say, she’s a woman and you’re a woman — proves not to be the women’s champion you hoped? Even worse, what do you do when the person who is the champion you hoped, doesn’t
Continue readingObama is going to revitalize our economy by having more government control over the economy and by ending the Bush tax cuts for upper earners. increasing taxes on the middle class. If by “revitalize,” he really means “Carterize,” I guess he’s right. Otherwise, I have grave doubts about the wisdom
Continue readingHere’s the Wall Street Journal on yesterday’s overwhelming bipartisan vote to protect from lawsuits telecommunications companies that, in good faith, cooperated with the government to help apprehend terrorists: Now and then sanity prevails, even in Washington. So it did yesterday as the Senate passed a warrantless wiretap bill for overseas
Continue readingI was still an oldlib, not a neocon, when the Clintons finished their White House tenure. I was also uninterested in politics so, like the vast majority of Americans, considered myself informed because I glanced at the headlines. I therefore managed to ignore complete the details and import of Bill
Continue readingLittle things mean a lot, and some Cuban voters in Florida, who might otherwise have been leaning towards Obama, may back off if they get a gander of his fellow travelers — Obama campaigners who are loud and proud in their support for Castro-ite Cuba and Che Guavara. There is
Continue readingI’ve never been able to read Philip Roth’s novels because I cannot stand his navel gazing (or should I say penis-gazing?) characters. They are, for me, profoundly uninteresting — I find them infantile and narcissistic in their concerns. Perhaps my the problem with his writing is his thinking. Why do
Continue readingOn December 12, 2006, I wrote the following: My personal feeling is that, while Obama may one day turn into a something, right now he’s pretty much a nothing: a very intelligent, but as yet untried man, with limited experience, and superficial views. What I’m gathering, though, is that on
Continue readingJohn McWhorter, who supports Obama, has pointed out what he sees as a profound problem with the Obama campaign, which is the way identity politics has made it impossible to treat Obama as an adult, rather than a child, for fear of being called “racist”: Yet there is an element
Continue readingMy 5th grader came home from school and told me that all the kids were saying that people should vote for Obama because he’s black. I asked, “Do they know anything else about him?” “No,” she replied. “They’re just saying [read: their parents are just saying] that people should vote
Continue readingIs it just me, or is this precisely the way the media covered Theresa Heinz Kerry when it became apparent that John Kerry was the frontrunner? Once reticent Michelle Obama is big campaign asset Michelle Obama’s fiery campaign style belies the fact that she was hesitant at first about getting
Continue readingIt’s okay to have eclectic, even wacky friends — but if you have friends such as this, you’d better explicitly disavow their wackier beliefs — not just in vague generalities, but specifically. Otherwise, you risk getting tarred with that same brush. And so it goes with Obama’s beloved mentor, Jeremiah
Continue readingI’ve noted before, based on instinct that, when it comes to substance, nothing distinguishes Obama and Clinton from each other, in that they’re each extremely liberal. That, I said, is why they’ve had to fall back so frantically on their racial and sexual identities. It’s not just the “identity politics”
Continue readingYou all know that I’ve been singularly unimpressed with Barack Obama’s rhetorical gifts. To me, he is just throws out platitudes — and he does that in an increasingly condescending manner. John Derbyshire is as unimpressed as I am, and has taken some time to dissect Obama’s language (h/t Paragraph
Continue readingCompared to Romney, I don’t like McCain. Compared to Obama or Hillary, I adore McCain and would happily vote for him — heck, if I were voting in Chicago (home turf for both Obama and Hillary), I’d vote for him twice, and have my ancestors vote for him too. You
Continue readingI caught a minute of Mike Gallagher today, and he was talking about the fact that Republicans are more critical of Republican candidates than Democrats are critical of Democratic candidates. It occurred to me that, at least in this election cycle, that may be because there are real, substantive differences
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