Month: June 2007

"Romney will not distance himself from who he is and what he believes," Kathryn-Jean Lopez, NRO.

A reader writes:

Your anti-Hillary posts are wearing thin already. With all due respect you’ve already shown colossal bad judgment regarding presidential character so your credibility in this area is near nil. You’re great at your strengths – perhaps the best. But you’re in no position to be lecturing Democrats who their best candidate is.

If I vote for Hillary it’s because I think she’s the best person in the race to restore this country from the degradation it’s been subjected to by the President you first supported. I certainly won’t be voting based on how the reality-detached right will act or react.

A reader writes:

I must say, watching the Democrats up there really clarified my vote: I won’t vote for any of them. I am dedicated to voting only for a candidate who refuses to grovel before the religious crowds on the right or the left. Indeed, the whole thing seemed to reveal how much the Democrats have become Republican-light: they never set their own agenda or stand diametrically opposed to the right. Instead, they merely stake out the center-left (at most) position on whatever the Republicans care to bring up. Rather than suggest that these vulgar mashes of religion and policy don’t belong in our election process, they have grown terrified of Republican morals-bashing and give in. I have to say, it is a startling indictment of the entire electoral system. 

But, an equally frightening thing occurred to me as I watched – why were only Edwards, Obama, and Clinton participating? Who gets to decide who the candidates are?  Last time I checked, there were other Democrats running. Don’t they get the same air time to humiliate themselves with talk of the ‘prayer warriors’?  This exercise, to me, said more about how much corporate media gets to dictate our choices than it did about religion. If CNN were to argue that these three lead in the polls, I would simply ask if that is not exactly the problem. They lead in the polls because the media has declared them the ‘first tier’ before people even have a chance to consider, say, Chris Dodd (I am not, I stress, a Chris Dodd supporter!). This comes on the heels of the vastly disproportionate speaking time in Wolf Blitzer’s disastrously moderated debate, I might add, in which Obama spoke 3 times as much as Gravel. Why not just let the press pick the candidates and save us the dog-and-pony show?

The right wants Libby pardoned. And so Bush gets it again. Bill Kristol sticks the knife in and twists it to the right here. Money quote:

So much for loyalty, or decency, or courage. For President Bush, loyalty is apparently a one-way street; decency is something he’s for as long as he doesn’t have to take any risks in its behalf; and courage – well, that’s nowhere to be seen. Many of us used to respect President Bush. Can one respect him still?

At some point, as Bush gets pummeled into a fleshy goo, one almost wants to look away, right? Naaah.

From a couple of polls. It sure will be weird watching him comment on the debate tonight – and somewhat unfair to the others, I’d say. My own view is that if such an unknown can make it so far so fast, something’s truly wrong with the rest of the field.

Just in case Al Gore is reading this, the latest assault on reason can be found here. Yes, we now know what kind of Doritos she likes. Snoop Dogg likes vanilla ice cream, by the way. Just doing my bit to destroy democratic discourse. More reason-assaulting here.

"I just want to remind everyone that William Jefferson (D–Icebox) is innocent until proven guilty. That’s the American way. Besides, there are lots of reasons why a congressman might have bricks of hundred dollar bills wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed in his freezer. Right?" – Kevin Drum.

I’ll be blogging the GOP debate tonight, for my sins. Stay tuned.

Steve Sailer goes there:

I’m often denounced for drawing attention to the salience of race and ethnicity to immigration policy. Under an ideal immigration system – limited numbers of legal immigrants chosen for their high human capital rather than for family connections – race and ethnicity would be much less relevant a question. India, for example, is not high IQ region on the whole. If we imported millions of random Indians we would have trouble. But, because Indian immigrants tend to be selected for skills, assimilation into middle class America is less of a problem for them.

Leaving the race question out of it entirely (as I think we should), I do think that not enough attention has been paid to the altogether welcome move in the current immigration bill to put brains and talent before family connections in determining who gets to become an American. It’s long overdue.

A reader comments:

Even though Steve sometimes has some good points, they are often so completely commingled with quasi-racist dreck that he’s painful to read. And the comments on the post that you linked to make me want to take a long shower…

Me too.

A boy stands in front of stacked wood at a timber market June 5, 2007 in Wuhan of Hubei Province, China. By China Photos/Getty.