Category: The Dish

Tony Blair really has gone, hasn’t he?

A reader nails it, I think:

I have taught at a military school now for about thirty years. Two years ago, a Lieutenant Colonel, new to the faculty, dropped into my office for advice.  "Dr. *******, I made a mathematics mistake on the blackboard today, plain for all to see. Am I of high enough rank that I can claim I didn’t make a mistake?"

My answer was "Hell, no, you’re not!"

But our president believes he is of high enough rank …

And he has gotten away with everything, has he not?

That 1982 piece by James Fallows on learning to write on a computer provoked major blogospheric chatter. Here’s another classic Atlantic piece on another technological innovation. It’s Mark Twain hearing someone talk on the telephone for the first time:

Without answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant, and sat down. Then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this world, — a conversation with only one end to it. You hear questions asked; you don’t hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear no thanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by apparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise, or sorrow, or dismay. You can’t make head or tail of the talk, because you never hear anything that the person at the other end of the wire says. Well, I heard the following remarkable series of observations, all from the one tongue, and all shouted, — for you can’t ever persuade the gentle sex to speak gently into a telephone."

In 1976: "perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser." Look, we all have a right to change our minds. I see no reason to believe that Christopher’s evolution has not been completely genuine. And he noted the torture and barbarism at the time.

Publius unpacks the analogy:

Here’s a man whose daughter – daughter – was viciously slandered by the GOP political machine in South Carolina, which included the social conservative hierarchy. Here’s a man who endured unspeakable torture. Here’s a man who, for better or worse, came to prominence through high-profile dissents from party orthodoxy. And in the past three years, he’s abandoned it all …

McCain’s soul-selling will be remembered (forever) in one of two very different ways. On the one hand, it could be remembered as the shrewd political calculation that won him the nomination and then the presidency. More likely, it will be remembered as pathetic hypocrisy that will accompany his permanent, eternal humiliation. He will soon go from media darling to "pathetic loser." Dukakis: Welcome to the club.

I think that’s too severe. I think he has tried to do the right thing and his politicking in the environment he’s in – the toxic state of the GOP – was about as minimal as he could muster. Yes, I’m still a sap for the guy, for all his faults.

Members of Karl Rove’s base defend their recent display of raw bigotry in the Congress:

Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

"Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them" – Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue.

If your iPhone destroyed your computer, as it just did for a friend of mine, this might be good therapy:

Science has demonstrated how it’s done. Now for therapies that could help veterans. (Hat tip: 3QD.)

Ambers reports from New Hampshire.

Mark Kleiman suggests another tack to rein in the veep.