Category: The Dish

Derb announces for Ron:

As for the notion, which I admit I settled on in my July piece, that there is no way Paul could win: Well, possibly so, but Paul is good enough, and his ideas are good enough — and close enough to Buckley-Goldwater conservatism—that those of us who cleave to that conservatism ought to take the wonderful opportunity offered by a presidential campaign to help promote them to the electorate.

If you think that our efforts against jihadist terrorism constitute World War Four (I don’t), you will not want Ron Paul for president… If you think there would be a whole world of difference between what Hillary Clinton would accomplish in the Rome-of-the-Borgias down there on the Potomac, by comparison with what Rudy, or Fred, or Mitt would accomplish, you won’t be supporting Paul.

If, however, you think that much of the underbrush that has grown up around our national institutions this past 40 years needs to by pulled up by the roots and burned, before it chokes the life out of our Republic, then Paul’s your man.

(Photo: Eric Thayer/Getty.)

Here’s part of the text of a Southern Baptist Convention full-page ad in USA Today in 1998 that Mike Huckabee signed:

"A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."

The group did not back away from the ad after a media firestorm. It seems to me that Huckabee should be asked if he still stands by that. And if he thinks it applies to Senator Clinton. No wonder the Dems are holding their fire.
 

And tidings of comfort and joy! His description of toy trains is a classic. The entire awkward exchange reminds me of why I hate this time of year more passionately than any other. Nixon seems as miserable as I normally am.

Virginia Postrel soldiers on with chemo. Send her your best.

A reader voices a sentiment that is gathering steam:

I hereby call upon President Bush to intervene and bring an end to the strike of the Writers Guild of America.  This is a time of war and national emergency.  With the Iowa caucuses less than a month away, and the choice of our next president in the balance, America desperately needs The Daily Show.

There is precedent.  In 1950, with the United States involved in the police action war in Korea, President Truman seized the nation’s steel plants after labor negotiations failed between the United Steel Workers of America and the steel industry.  President Truman’s action led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Youngstrown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), in which the opinion of Justice Robert H. Jackson, a former prosecutor of war crimes at Nuremberg, described the limits on executive power in times of war.

Today, as President Bush’s executive branch commits war crimes while denying any limit on its executive power, we again face a national emergency. The strike-imposed silence of Stephen Colbert and The Daily Show has left America without a crucial source of actual information.  Democracy is at risk!

It’s time–finally–for President Bush to act like Truman. Please, President Bush, end the strike and bring back The Daily Show before it’s too late!

I think it’s a joke. But then I thought Sheryl Crow was serious.

A small detail from the NYT/CBS poll:

Nearly as many of Mrs. Clinton’s backers say they are supporting her because of her husband as say they are supporting her because of her own experience.

Someone’s been having fun with some Amazon Bic reviews.

A reader writes:

My son is an officer in the Army and he is part of the ongoing action over there. Here is what he wrote me some time ago.

"No one ever mentions the fact that we have literally built walls around each neighborhood and along every highway as the reason the violence is down here.  The place looks like an Orwell novel gone wrong. The people cannot shoot each other through walls and the insurgents cannot move around to plant their bombs.  A society cannot function walled off form each other. We pay every bill, manage every facet of governance. The government at every level is a joke. The ministries are controlled by one faction (Shia). They have almost no experience or education. A bunch of guys walk around in suits and look important while they do nothing.

The local governments (to use the term loosely) are  a collection of gangsters and strong men concerned with consolidating power and lining their pockets with cash from kickbacks of U.S. construction projects. The people have no work ethic. (I offered two grubby starving men 20 dollars each to unload some grain bags… they asked for fifty and then refused to work for less. I unloaded it myself) They throw their trash in the street until it piles high enough for the kids to play on it, and get sick. So, in short, I don’t see a Capitalistic Democracy sprouting along the Tigris. I see the little boy (The U.S. Army) with his finger in the dike. If we remove our hand, it all goes away."

I later had the opportunity to discuss this with my son and he fleshed out the point about the neighborhoods being walled off. He told me that there are 17 feet high cement barriers at the end of every street separating manageable neighborhoods. There are checkpoints to control ingress and egress to each neighborhood. Citizens are not able to lead ordinary lives. The joke among officers over there is that in order to show further "progress"  the troops will have to circle EVERY house.

A seasonal video that never seems to get old:

Who wants Bailey’s?

A reader found the original strip, discussed in this post.