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Just in case you didn't know it before, his snooty just-so story about talk-radio hosts raging in "spittle-flecked furor" ought to tell you what profound contempt David Brook has for conservatives."
I knew I could count on 'The Other McCain' to make my point.
Since October is the month for horror, I want to recommend two sites. One of these I've mentioned before because I loves me some Final Girl. The other is a fine movie viewer known as Arbogast. Both of them are doing a special somethin'-somethin' for the month and since I've enjoyed going through the month with 'em, here's the clicky-linky so you can give them some traffic, as well.
Final Girl is reviewing a horror movie a day:
Day 1: "Wait a minute...who am I here?"
You can can start with her mini-reviewy-thing of The Stepfather.
When you're done getting caught up on her 31 movies in 31 days (though, we're not at 31 yet - 'natch) you can skip on over to Arbogast's:
He's got something quite interesting going on... collecting 31 days of screams. Highlighting some of the best screamer scenes and describing why they caught his attention (which, yes... why is he so into screaming? creepy and all that, but I'm not suggesting you invite him over and be his new bestest friend) is a fascinating read:
It's that delay that makes this scream classic to my eyes. I wish Hobson had done more horror movies because she was born for it.
Among the Republican senators who voted against the stimulus were Texas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. But now, both Hutchison and Cornyn are pressuring the Obama administration to give Texas $3 billion in stimulus funds.
and they're not the only ones who are suddenly holding their hand out... they're just among the most egregious. The answer should be a quiet, but firm : "No."
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) is now criticizing Gov. Tim Kaine (D) for being “slow” to spend the stimulus money allocated for Virginia — even though if Wolf and his Republican colleagues would have had their way, there would be no extra money for the state at all.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also voted against the Recovery Act and has since called it a failure. The stimulus, Grassley told the National Review last week, “is not working.” In June, he had harsher words, saying the stimulus had no positive impact on the economy, “none whatsoever.” But recently, Grassley announced two grants totaling $399,875 to Goodwill Industries of Central Iowa and Goodwill Industries of the Heartland through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration program. “These funds will give a hand up to our veterans who have fought bravely and selflessly for our country,” Grassley said. The funds were authorized by the Recovery Act.
David Brooks is one of those columnists (who seem to be paid a nice wage for nothing... everybody has an opinion and you know what they say they're like... but never mind that for now) who sees himself as a Conservative through and through. And, he used to be respected as such... but like so many such center-right pundits, he's found himself on the outs with the "real conservatives" for not drinking the cool aid. Every one of his columns these days is met my linkages from "real right" bloggers who immediately tell him he's nothing, no one cares what he thinks, he's just a RINO - Obama worshipper - no spine betrayer of convervatism.
His latest article for the Times won't be winning him back any fans among the rabid set:
They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.[GOP politicians]
There are a lot of past articles that I disagreed with David on - he tended to love GW and Cheney too much for me as their cheerleader and sometimes he seems petty but I have to wonder if he's not speaking truth here. It does seem like the Conservatives on TV are given outsized attention to their overwrought blatherings (which is disheartening to see when you hear actual Senators or Representatives pay them lip service in the Chambers) when they've shown that they don't really seem to have much influence among the voting population. You have to wonder if all of the people who buy Limpy's or O'Blowhard's or the other hot air artists, at the end of the day, aren't actually the type to get out and vote at all. Or, are more of their listeners not "true believers", but rather just enjoy the outrageous rantings as entertainment and are more capable of understanding the difference between Conservative radio rants and actual governing then many (myself included) have given them credit for?
Read his column for the evidence that Rush may have 'millions' of listeners, but he apparently doesn't influence millions of votes when it counts.
"David Brooks hates you
I've written before about the psycho lawyer/dentist who falls for just about every fake Kenyan birth certificate she can find online to "prove" that our President isn't really our President because he isn't a Conservative President, and surely real Americans wouldn't have voted him into office.
Well, Ms. Nutso-Cuckoo has once again had a suit dismissed challenging our elected President's eligibility to be elected in the first place. And wonderfully, the judge wasn't shy about telling her to stop wasting everyone's time:
“Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, plaintiff unashamedly alleges that defendant has the burden to prove his ‘natural born’ status,” Land states. “Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our country was founded in order to purportedly ‘protect and preserve’ those very principles.
“Unlike in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ simply saying something is so does not make it so,” Land says.
But, here's the best part - Land ordered that the defendants — who include Obama, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Col. Thomas MacDonald, Fort Benning garrison commander — will recover any costs from the complaint from Rhodes.
Now, that's justice. Now, Captain Rhodes should be drummed out of the military with a dishonorable discharge... or sent immediately to southern Afghanistan since that is what she is obviously trying to avoid with this foolishness.
I've just read the latest WaPo article on the decreasing support for our efforts in Afghanistan and I find it disturbing. Unlike Iraq, I supported the assault on the Taliban government when they gave safe haven to Bin Murderer and am glad that we dumped that regime.
I find it disturbing that there is now a majority (according to the WaPo poll, anyway) that now think the war there is no longer worth fighting and that we shouldn't send more troops there. It's a sentiment that I can understand and sympathize with at the gut level... I'd prefer our troops spend more time defending our borders and less time in foreign nations - especially those that don't need our "protection"... Germany, for one.
But if you think for just a moment with your head, rather than your emotions, does anyone think the Taliban will not surge over the country again if we were'nt there? And if they did do that, does anyone think the current government has the forces to resist an overthrow? And if Karzai (or whoever the next President is, if there's a surprise winner) is deposed and the Taliban reinstitute their regime, does any of us think that the first think they won't do will be to welcome Al Qaeda back again?
We went in there and toppled a regime for a very specific reason - one which I believe the United States was completely justified in doing. We can't allow the Taliban to "rack up a win" by re-taking control of the nation. And that means we need to (1) increase troops - especially special forces - and give them the mandate to hunt down and eliminate Taliban cells. And, just as importantly (and we're not good at this, I'll admit) we need to send in more engineers, construction personnel, expert advisors in law enforcement, and - yes - money to build and protect infrastructure. The Afghans need to know that their lives are better by receiving things like roads, schools, hospitals and fresh water in the cities.
Afghanistan is a huge nation and we won't be able to do these things everywhere at once. But, we can pick three of the largest cities and make them the "showcases" for what the country as a whole has to gain by allying with the United States against the regressive former regime members. We also need to encourage employment in the country by putting the people to work on these projects for real wages. I think many of the Taliban's current support is really due more to (1) fear and two (2) economic despair.
One can only be overcome through military strength and publicly touted wins against the insurgent force and the other can only be overcome by providing a way to earn money for their families.
Are we winning or losing this fight in the country? My opinion is neither - the picture isn't rosy enough to say we're winning, but it isn't nearly bleak enough to state we're losing. Instead we seem to be in a bit of a quagmire with the outcome taking two steps forward and then two steps back. We need a bold intiative and some "thinking outside the box" which again, isn't a strongsuit among our elected officials. But, I think it's too soon to withdraw and have it be spun as anything but a retreat.
"These colors don't run", remember that Patriots? We need a shakeup in strategy (we need to be a lot more aggressive and deadly in our pursuit of the Taliban in the Southern Regions for one), but what we really don't need is to wash our hands of what we justifiably started.
What the commentariat class has to say:
Hot Air: is more interested in another opportunity to slam Obama and the left, rather than address the conditions in Afghanistan: It's the typical Conservative tact these days - don't bother talking about options or ideas... instead just continue ranting.
Matt Yglesias: a progressive left blogger, is concerned that the focus of the war is drifting too far into Counter-Insurgency rather than Counter-Terrorism which are two differing things. My only comment here is that there is no mention by him on nation-building, which we were going to be stuck doing as soon as we marched into Afghanistan. Like I've said, we were justified in doing so, but rebuilding the country should have always been upper most in our minds... we didn't allow Japan or Germany to devolve when we defeated those places in WWII and we can't allow it to happen here (although, just how far Afghanistan could devolve is a question).
Foreign Policy: has an interesting post by Stephen Walt who argues that my very point that if we just left, we'd be opening the door for al Qaeda to once again have a stronghold is not necessarily true. In fact, he argues, that we've conflated the views of extremist groups to views of the Taliban and in fact, that the Taliban has already learned a valuable lesson about providing 'safe harbors' to a group the U.S. has declared war on. I don't believe his rationale, but I do respect his ideas and he argues them well.
Foreign Policy, also: Now, here's something I'd like to see far more often. Opposing views posted on a central topic at the same website. In this post at PF, Peter Bergen tells Stephen Walt he's being a bit unrealisitic. I have to say that I'm completely onboard with Mr. Bergen's reasoning over his fellow blogger, but I think both men make reasoned arguments.
If you want to read two well articulated, reasoned views I'd skip H.A. and M.Y. and read the two FP posts.
Regardless of our next step in the conflict, God bless and comfort our troops.
When you're wrong, you should always just admit it rather than trying some round-about, tie yourselves in knots, ignore simple logic way of why what you said was wrong, but you weren't actually wrong....
So - I was wrong - and I owe an apology for a harsh post a few days ago, in which I belittled Allahpundit for suggesting that the Fake Kenyan Birth Certificate was planted by Obama supporters. Apparently, it was planted - at least if we take an Anonymous Blogger's post at face value. And, that's really all we can do, isn't it?
Now, this would be the point where I would begin to explain why I wasn't really wrong, even though I was wrong... but I'm not gonna do that, 'cause it's tacky.
So - even though Allahpundit doesn't know me from Adam and, I'm sure, has never heard of this livejournal account - I made statements about his post in public, so I'll apologize for calling him an ass due to that post in public.
"I am sorry that I belittled your speculations and admit that you were right and I was wrong, and I was the ass."
Orly Taitz
Philip J. Berg
"Ron Polarik"
Gary Kreep
Jerome Corsi
Michael Patrick Leahy
Birthers, all.
We're not laughing with you, Dears. We're definitely laughing at you... at least when we're not wondering how many more times you can repeat the same bogus, fact-free claims in public without being charged with defamation, anyway.
UPDATE: Oh, duh! Of course Taitz, et al, aren't pulling a fraud because they're die-never conservatives who are enslaved to Rush's version of the GOP... it's all of that Obama's fault, she's making a fool of herself and the Right in general!
How could I have not seen it sooner?
Belated exit question: Does anyone not think the Kenyan birth certificate was cooked up and leaked by Obama supporters, precisely because they knew Birthers would seize on it and make fools of themselves?
The answer is, "Yes, those of us not blindly partisan shills for the GOP do not think this was a brilliant plant by the President. And, Allahpundit is a giant ass."
Update (08/08/09) - See my August 8th post where I, damn it, have to apologize publically to Allahpundit.
(Michelle Malkin on those unemployed parasites)
"If you put enough government cheese in front of people, they are just going to keep eating it and you're just kicking the can down the road. And just to hammer this point about the unemployment benefits extension again, it was Larry Katz, who's a chief labor economist for the Clinton labor department, who came out with a study -- and there are a lot of these smart economists who say this -- that if you keep extending these 'temporary' unemployment benefits you're just going to extend joblessness even more."
But, oops... Malkin's source, who she cited repeatedly, seems to think Malkin's wrong.
Because, we all know that folks on unemployment are there because they don't want the jobs that don't exist right now. They want that free government cheese... that wonderful, government cheese! Why work so you can, oh, not sleep on the streets or keep your utilities on, or buy steak once in a while when you can keep collecting a substandard cheesy-check from the government.
Thank god that Malkin is there to point out these truths to us - using sources who publically disagree with her. I mean, it's just SO obvious that the unemployed are what is causing unemployment! If we would just get them to stop collecting their benefits, by cutting them off, then - uh - apparently, jobs will just suddenly spring into existence? I'm sorry, are workers the creator of jobs - 'cause I totally did not know this.
I think I'll call on the underemployed honey to whip up a $250,000 job ... of course, maybe its only the folks who are collecting their unemployment benefit who have this magical power over the economy....
