"I don’t read a lot of books (any actually) that have the 
words "conservative" or "liberal" on the cover but "The Conservative Soul" is not a fire-breather or a back-slapper or a bunch of anecdotes strung together to mock the other side. [It’s] a fucking book with a capital fucking B.
I think a lot of people in America are going to be better for reading it. I know I am," – Matt Stone, co-creator, South Park.
A reader writes:
I’m a young, newly-minted assistant professor here at a large state school in Mississippi and I’ve got to say I’ve had just had an interesting conversation with one of my more conservative students. As far as I can tell he’s a pretty ‘die hard’ Republican. He’s really big into state and local politics and is even participating in a big way in a statewide campaign – and not for the first time. He is bright, sophisticated, and probably a future power in state and local politics here in Mississippi. What surprised me was both his anti-war attitude and, moreover, his positive view of Obama versus Hillary. Though I did not ask, as it was not my place, who he intended to vote for, it seemed clear to me that he recognizes that 2008 is going to be a disaster for the GOP outside of the deep south and that Obama was probably the best the Democrats had to offer in terms of leadership potential. What most impressed him, he said, was that Obama was against the war from the beginning – giving credence to the effectiveness of the ‘Obama has superior judgement’ meme that is being put out by Obama’s campaign.
Andrew, this is a young, white, male conservative, from the deepest of the deep south professing support for an intellectual, African-American liberal from Chicago. Democrats have written these folks off for decades.
A Hillary candidacy would merely continue this tradition and would represent a return to the familiar, divisive politics that has divided the baby-boomers for decades. Reagan and then the ’94 election killed the ‘old left’ in this country. Let’s hope 2008 and Obama kills the ‘old right’ because, like Dick Gephardt and the UAW, movement conservatism has outlived its usefulness. Maybe once both these old boomer ideologies are well and truly discredited something new, from both the left and right, can emerge.
An Obama presidency would be a stake through the heart of the vampire politics bequeathed to this country by the baby-boomers inability to set aside their differences over Vietnam and the cultural changes that shook this country to the core in 60s and 70s. We cannot be rid of their influence soon enough.
Some bracing impressions from Jim Fallows, back in the States from a long stay in China:
Once again, the beauty, wealth, polish, finished-ness, natural abundance, cleanliness, order, consumer choice, etc of America’s polished cities is just stupefying. Yes, this was a clear and perfect autumn afternoon in a prosperous capital. Still: my wife and I walked into a run-of-the-mill drug store and stood for a moment, stunned: there was a wider array of stuff on shelves within our immediate range of vision than we’d seen in months in Shanghai, the cosmopolitan pride of China.
Americans read so many reports about the dynamism of China’s industries and the skyscrapers of its big cities that they may begin to think there is some overall comparability between the two economies. No. There isn’t. Not to mention: at the friends’ house where we’re staying, we drank water… out of the tap!
Frank Capley (R) and his partner Joe Alfano hold signs during a same sex marriage demonstration October 15, 2007 in San Francisco, California. About a dozen same-sex couples held a demonstration in opposition of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to veto California state assembly bill AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would have granted same-sex marriages in California. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
A reader writes:
Here’s what I told a friend this morning: Re Neocons, "They are always attacking affirmative action, saying that school admissions and such should be based on merit. But in practice, they ignore merit when filling top jobs, preferring their own children."
Interestingly, Bill Buckley ignored his son, an experienced magazine editor, and passed control of NR to new blood.
The Kagans take the cake: sons, brothers and wives all wired into the same career-structure, and endlessly reviewing themselves. Never any disclosure of course.
In a phrase from the mouth of Bob Jones III:
"This is all about beating Hillary."
Rudy is already using her to win the nomination as well. They all will. Just mention her name in a conservative direct-mail pitch and the money is yours. Will they also unload on any Democrat? Sure. But only one Democrat can raise the money for the GOP like she can – and already is. And only one brings (almost) everybody back into the big tent. There’s a reason they’re already bashing her. Because they know it works.
And all Jake Gyllenhaal can do is open and shut his mouth. Great beard, by the way.
The first baby-boomer applies for social security.
Now: "phony post-traumatic stress disorder." A classic:
The liberal mindset is what causes PTSD. Boys being raised to men without a strong male role model, and having a false sense of what life is about is causing our young men to go to war and come home freaked out.
If only they’d been raised by Clarence Thomas’s granddad. One Vietnam vet responds:
So, apparently I am faking my PTSD. Apparently the twenty fucking years its taken me to stop figuring out whether the person who is walking past me is going to try and kill and how can I kill them is all fake because my mother breast fed me or something. The years of insomnia and flared tempers to the point of violence is all faked because I am not macho enough. I guess I didnt drink enough tequila, shoot enough people or screw enough prostitutes in central America to be called ‘a man’ in these keyboard cowards eyes.
Now – comics for Allah!
