Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Writers block, nothing to say

Posted: September 8, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff, opinion/news
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You know I been thinking and thinking and I can’t think of a think I feel like saying about anything else right now, but some other people have interesting things to say today.

VDH has some great comparisons between past the present concerning President Obama:

Once upon a time, Candidate Obama also assured skeptical voters that he would show us how to transcend race. He was no Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, who used skin color and white guilt for careerist purposes. The Reverend Wright, “typical white person,” Michelle Obama’s “downright mean country,” and the Pennsylvania “clingers” remark were mere aberrations of the exhausting campaign, hyped by the shameless right wing.

But soon the people got the attorney general of the United States calling them racial cowards and dismissing voter-intimidation suits against club-wielding Black Panthers who had swarmed voting booths. Cambridge police were relegated to Neanderthal profilers who stereotyped the innocent, such as Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Environment czar Van Jones warned of white conspiracies to pollute the ghetto and bragged that blacks, unlike whites, did not go on public-school shooting sprees. The nation’s most powerful politicians, like House Ways and Means chairman Charlie Rangel and New York governor David Paterson, for some strange reason, were suddenly victims of racial bias, which alone explained their travails. All this was not supposed to happen in the age of Obama.

Jay Nordlinger expands:

They say that “hate” is rearing its head, and that President Obama and the Democrats are the victims of it. Let me make a couple of predictions: I predict that the chairman of the Republican National Committee will never say, “I hate the Democrats and everything they stand for. This [politics, basically] is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

Howard Dean said that about the GOP: “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for. . . .”

I predict that an editor of a conservative magazine will never write a piece called “The Case for Obama Hatred,” beginning, “I hate President Barack Obama.”

A New Republic editor did this, about Bush.

Byron York continues to show why his loss is painful for National Review:

The first words of the Times’ story on Jones’ resignation were, “In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics. …” One news anchor suggested Jones was “the Republican right’s first scalp.” Other coverage called the Jones affair a victory for Glenn Beck, Fox News, right-wing blogs, and even Sarah Palin, who played no role in the matter.

If you throw in Rush Limbaugh, you have all the bogey-people of the conservative world. To some on the left, including some journalists, denying them a victory was a top priority, no matter what Van Jones had said and done.

There was a day, not too long ago, when the Times and other influential news organizations could kill a story — could deny the bad guys a win — simply by ignoring it. Sometimes they still try. But it just won’t work anymore.

Just one Minute highlighted a Firedog post that rolled my eyes:

Now he’s been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 — that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11. Well, that and calling Republicans “assholes.” I’m pretty sure that if you search through the histories of every single liberal leader at the CAF dinner that night, they have publicly said that and worse.

Jane in case you haven’t figured it out those facts are BAD things.

Speaking of Bad things:

And since the blogosphere is ranting and raving about Truthers right now, and how horrible and evil they are (a position with which I agree), let’s take a little look at who’s behind the Cincinnati Tea Party, shall we?

One of the main organizers, and a featured speaker, is Jason Rink…

…Lovely! A highly placed Ron Paulian, and an associate of racist paleocon Lew Rockwell!

And Rink is also … you guessed it … a Truther.

I’ve attended a tea party and agree with their goals but this type of thing is very bad and has to be nailed at once. If they become Ron Paul rallies this is a very bad thing and overrides the legit message.

and finally via Glenn an Ann Althouse commentator has the best take on it all:

“Ha, this will play out exactly as I thought it might. My son adores Obama – entirely from things he’s heard at school. By the end of this, he’s going to think of the dude as just one more boring windbag.”

Those guys are doing better than me.

Oh and there will be larger police presence at my kids school today due to the murders in town.

The Next best moves: Right and Left

Posted: September 8, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Ok: Here is my suggestion for the best moves post Van Jones for both the sides of the aisle. These are the best political moves, I make no representations on them in any other context. This is just what I think would work.

Right/Beck defenders:

I would instantly be contacting the boycotting companies linking Van Jones to Color of Change and demand they explicitly denounce Jones’ and Color of change. These advertisers are sheep and once one backs down the rest will. If they refuse to denounce Jones then they can truthfully say that company X refused to denounce Jones who had to step down because of xxx, yyy, zzz.

Right/Beck opponents

I would take the mantle away from Glenn Beck by asking over and over why the various Czars did not have to fill out the questionnaire. I would keep asking if any other White House Czars etc have any of the Jones positions. I would call those positions a “Jones” and then Finally demand that the White House confirm that nobody other Czar else has a “Jones”. I would furthermore in every interview concerning this administration point out the media’s unwillingness to report on the story IE: “Remember this is the same New York Times that didn’t report on the Jones story.” I’d also do some background stuff to make sure no birthers or truthers are lurking in my shadows.

Left/Jones Opponents:

I would use the Jones situation to go after the birthers, I would “regret” the opinions of Jones while quietly make sure that anyone else in this administration doesn’t have a Jones problem. I would note any and all connection to the brither movement on the republican side and either immediately go after them or bank them for destruction later. I would start by highlighting LGF’s exposure of one of the Organizers of the Cincinnati tea parties links to trutherism. I would mention it in interviews without mentioning the general tea party movement, I’d let people make their own connections.

Left/Jones supporters

I would press every congressman on the Right to explicitly denounce Birtherism, and would use it as an offensive weapon, I would further note republican connections to tea parties and highlight Ron Paul supporters at each one and bank them. When the time comes I would link each activist/pol who shows up or supports them to the Ron Paul and some of his past associations. I would beat the right with this, but the trick is to hold off until these people are deeper in the trap.

Well I’ve looked at the Obama speech for tomorrow…

Posted: September 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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…and frankly it sounds pretty good to me. The best part:

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

If he gave that kind of speech about American and the rest of the world all the time, he’d be at 70% approval.

The speech is good, it’s up to the teachers and schools not to go all obamacult over it.

Glenn asks the $64,000 question…

Posted: September 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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…concerning the MSN case:

What other major stories are they missing — or sitting on?

Answer: What ever they damn well can get away with! And by the tone of his post Dan Riehl would agree.

I think the MSM needs a Lombardi to coach them and insist on excellence. I can imagine their Max McGee moment:

Lombardi once opened pre-season camp by holding up a ball and saying, “Gentleman, this is a football.” To which team cut up Max McGee replied, “Can you slow down coach. You are going a little fast.”

Jake Tapper can be Lombardi, he actually does the work, I think Barnicle can play be McGee.

Update: RS McCain demonstrates the crazy uncles are driving the coverage on the left.

Jane Hamsher, Alan Colmes, and Keith Olbermann apparently live inside an echo chamber where a man who was a leader of a Marxist outfit like STORM, and who subsequently signed a 9/11 Truther petition, is not legitimately controversial. (The next time Colmes goes on Fox, somebody needs to ask him, “Hey, Alan, do you think Marxism is a bad thing?”)

That someone like Jones could be appointed as a White House policy “czar,” and that Olbermann can’t see where some people might have a problem with that, tends to disprove the worry-wart concerns of certain centrist Republicans that the GOP is the more “extreme” of the two major parties. Does anyone seriously expect an avowed “Birther” to get a White House job in the next Republican administration?

We need to remember that phrase when power comes our way and our own crazy uncles try to rise.

Update: VDH expands on the left’s indifference to this stuff:

What is strange about all this chic-radicalism is how would-be revolutionaries that wish to dismantle America as we know it and/or emulate failed systems abroad, always do so from comfort, security, affluence, and freedom of choice unique to America and Europe, suggesting that radical politics and those who agitate for them are sort of a fashion statement, aimed to resonate among particular elite leftist audiences and to bring dividends from them, but not to be taken too seriously as guides in their own lives.

Not so strange it’s the gravy train.

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