- I’ve reviewed the instant replay, and it’s strike 3.
- Justice Samuel Alito, Burkean.
- Shhhh! Don’t say “death panels!”
- It’s going to be a long decade for _______.
- Europe may be broke, but it’s got style.
- Philly gets a new star.
- Flash! Unsigned NYT Lead Editorial May Be Right!
1
It seems I was a bit too easy on Herman Cain yesterday (see item 4). I called “Strike 2,” but others conservatives have already called “strike 3” along with commentators I haven’t yet placed on the “spectrum” (which really is at least a 3D grid, but never mind) Maybe they were enthusiastic initially and thus are all the more bitterly disappointed, as I can be pretty savage with Dubya (who I really, really liked in the 2000 Presidential debates with Al Gore before he … Oh, never mind. I’ve said it enough already).
Truth be told, I start calling 2 strikes, when they first step on deck, on anyone who thinks POTUS is an entry-level political position. I don’t care how big a pizza chain they built or what a hardscrabble childhood they had before doing it. If all you’ve done in life is business, bully for you, but you’d better hit it out of the park on your first swing in politics if you intend to start at the top.
And that goes double for guys like The Donald, who no doubt played the crony capitalist system like a Stradivarius as he did his big, big real estate deals.
2
Mark T. Mitchell at Front Porch Republic brought to my attention an admiring Weekly Standard article on Justice Alito. His willingness to be the lone dissenter on a couple of “hard cases” that the majority reflexively treated as “Yawn! Just another kind of ‘free speech'” is intriguing, and solo dissents are typically very candid (as the Justice has given up on garnering support by trimming and tailoring).
3
Friend of all things Democrat, Paul Krugman, commits truth (last year) about what the left really thinks about “death panels.”
Spoiler: they’re for ’em.
(HT The Anchoress, who called it “Amanpour’s facial expression: Priceless“).
4
Pat Buchanan says Obama’s been running PR circles around the GOP on its ill-conceived tactic of fighting on Hill Debt Ceiling. But he tells the GOP how it can snatch real victory from the jaws of PR defeat.
He concludes that “For the left, this is going to be a long decade.” Drop the part before the comma, Pat, and I’m with ya.
5
James Howard Kunstler’s weekly blog contrasts the U.S. and Europe in broad, but recognizable, strokes:
Europe is arguably worse off money-wise, more broke, flimsier, crapped out, crippled, and paralyzed. Sad, because in outward appearance Europe is – how shall I put this? – better turned out than America. Europe is a fit, silver-haired gentleman in a sleek Italian suit and a pair of Michael Toschi swing lace wingtips, holding a serious-looking Chiarugi leather briefcase. America is pear-shaped blob of semi-formed male flesh, in ankle-length cargo shorts, a black T-shirt featuring skull motifs, tattoos randomly assigned (as if by lottery) to visible flesh, a Sluggo buzz-cut, and a low-rider sports cap designed to make your head look flat. In other words, he lacks a certain savoir-faire compared to his European cousin. But both are broke. Neither has any idea what he will do next – though, for the American, it will probably involve the ingestion of melted cheese or drugs (or both). When the European collapses, a certain air of delicacy will attend his demise; the expired American will go up in flames in a trailer and they’ll have to sort out his remains from the melted goop of his dwelling-place with a front-end loader.
He also calls the Congressional Democrats “a most remarkable class of maundering chickenshits and grifters.”
The two parties are unreformable and the Tea Party is the stooge of one of the two parties, and there is no other party of earnest, decisive, and sane individuals anywhere near the horizon. So some kind of convulsion is in the cards and it will be the unfortunate duty of some dutiful officer to step in and set an agenda based on something other than bluster, fakery, and pocket pool.While there’s a good chance the US debt ceiling will be extended, it seems to me that meanwhile we have crossed an invisible line into a place where untoward things happen.
Maybe his style’s an acquired taste, like IPA. I’ve acquired it. He’s saying more colorfully here what others are saying, too, like here and here (though the latter seems to think we must find a way to prop up this “Republic of Hustlers”).
6
Pray for Denver’s Charles Chaput as he moves to Philadelphia. I like what I’ve heard about the new Archbishop, but whether I liked it or not, Roman Catholicism is too big in this country for any culturally engaged Christian to be indifferent to its travails and their potential correction.
7
For a change, I think legislators tied to a Procrustean bed is more apt than Odysseus and the Sirens, but in any event, now that they mention it, I, too, am troubled by the multiplication of candidate pledges:
It used to be that a sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution was the only promise required to become president. But that no longer seems to be enough for a growing number of Republican interest groups, who are demanding that presidential candidates sign pledges shackling them to the corners of conservative ideology. Many candidates are going along, and each pledge they sign undermines the basic principle of democratic government built on compromise and negotiation.
To “compromise and negotiation,” I would add “playing the hand you’ve been dealt.” The hand I’ve just been dealt is that the New York Times editorial board has uttered something other than balderdash for a change, and it seemed worth acknowledging.
Maybe I’m too influenced by the odiousness of the thought of Judges promising how they’ll decide future cases, but surely even legislators shouldn’t pledge “no matter what happens, I will not vote for ___________,” if only because things like economic melt-down can be game-changers.
Bon appetit!
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 