Category: The Dish

How Serious A Candidate Is Fred Thompson?

I like the guy, but I’m not convinced the hype is backed by anything substantive. But, hey, I’m open to persuasion! Bainbridge is excited. Chait is worried. Matt disagrees. Zengerle sees another Wes Clark. Matt counters:

But what happened with Clark is that it seemed like he’d be a strong candidate – military background, southerner, etc. – but then it turned out he was really bad at campaigning. Thompson’s actually campaigned before and it seems he was pretty good at it. If he stumbles, it’ll be for some other, not-especially-Clark-like reasons.

My view: the more the merrier.

Women Under Siege

"Saudi society is based on masters and slaves, or, to be more precise, masters and maids, because the masters are the men, and the slaves are the women… The ownership of a woman is passed from one man to another. Ownership of the woman is passed from the father or the brother to another man, the husband. The woman is merely a piece of merchandise, which is passed over to someone else – her guardian. How do you recognize a maid or a slave? … I believe that in general, for the Saudi woman, every day is a new battle. She needs to find ways to live on the face of this earth without colliding with the law, with men, with society, with the religious clerics, or with the political establishment. She is besieged. There are five types of shackles, or jails, for the woman – if she manages to escape one, she might enter another. The first is the tribe, then comes the family, then the religious institutions, the political establishment, and finally, society. Wherever you go, you encounter a battle. What are you to do?" – Wajeha Al-Huwaidar, Saudi liberal.

Iowa Republicans and the War

A reader notices this intriguing poll of 600 Iowa GOPers:

Do you see President George W. Bush as a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan?  (Republicans Only)

Yes 5%
No 79%
Undecided 16%

More striking:

Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? (Republicans Only)

Yes 54%
No 37%
Undecided 9%

All troops. Next six months. Among the Dems, the pro-withdrawal number is 81 percent. It’s over, Mr President.

The Curse of “Diversity”

So good to hear someone tell the truth:

Diversity, the idea, is good. Diversity, the social engineering project, in which each colored, each religionist, each sexual preference, is praised for the simple fact that he or she exists, is a load of crap. When everyone is all into fully embracing their “identity,” they give up what Jean Baudrillard calls the will for sovereignty. In other words, who gives an eff what you call yourself if you’re not free? Yet that’s exactly what the diversity discourse does. It tells you, here is a nice corner for you , look we even put cushions there of the kind your mother stitches, now just stay there OK? Everyone ends up in ghettoes. The best place in the US to see it are top tier universities like the kind where I went, or, you can go to Canada, apparently the entire country is suffering from this problem.