Category: The Dish

One of my favorite Republican readers vents:

You have no idea how damaging were Geffen’s remarks to Maureen Dowd. Stop being naive about the Democrats. Geffen sits down for an interview with the Poison Pen of the New York Times, – the Democratic Party’s answer to Luella Parsons, and you think it just happened?

Read Barone’s column of yesterday: Rudy is the Gay Friendly Godzilla who makes Hugh Hewitt smile. It’s a hell of a paradox, but this next year is about the Republican Party moving past George Bush and into the future. The reason why the Democrat alarm bells are going off has as much to do with Nancy holding on to marginals in the house and Harry Reid holding on to his job as anything else. If Rudy becomes some very authentic monster candidate, then all these downticket races start getting affected.

Democrats have made an enormously stupid bet about the Republican Party: you can see it in their blogs. They have told each other that we were sure to nominate Elmer Gantry and go to the country with a Bush Clone like George Allen. They have sworn, up and down, that Rudy could not get the nomination. Someone like Kos or Josh Marshall will never, ever get this about us – we are an extremely pragmatic group of people who like to win and aren’t willing to lose just because liberal bloggers and the Media say we should lose.

Authenticity vs. inauthenticity. That’s the story of 2008. Rudy is real. You can touch and feel the Catholic kid from the Neighborhood. You know that some of his friends died in the Towers. Rudy is real. McCain has sometimes tossed away his authenticity he earned the hard way, and let’s face it, he’s not in the best of health. Romney is not quite authentic but Lord how he tries.

Hillary is not real. She’s inauthentic. There’s your story, Andrew. An entire army of front men and pet chihuhuas like Begala or Wolfson cannot alter her inauthenticity one whit: she’s poison and there’s not a damn thing she can do about it. Your liberal writers are killing her slowly, starting with Dowd, because liberals know their own kind. They are just slow in getting around to pulling the maskie off the droog. More and more liberals, the ones with money and influence and power, are refusing to be conned, or intimidated, by the Clintons one last time.

What no one has the answer to yet is Obama. He’s the Mystery Date. The girls all love him; but is he Authentic or is he made up, or is he Condi Lite? So far, count me unimpressed: too many platitudes in the books. We’ll find out.

Bush tried to be real. He did. But he blew it with the people and with the center of the country. Rumsfeld killed him. You can only lose that bond once and you never get it back. Rudy is something we haven’t had in some time, a chance to return to the promise of Reagan and Goldwater, and a shot at authenticity.

Well, it’s a plausible theory. I’d say that Romney is still a formidable candidate once you see past the enormous baggage. He looks and sounds like a president to me. I see the Giuliani appeal, but we have yet to see the full Rudy closet – and neither has the country. Clinton will not go easily, and I have to say I remain more impressed by Obama than my reader. I honestly don’t know who I’ll be backing in November 2007, let alone 2008. But I intend to spend the next few months, with your help, trying to figure it out.

"Jet-man", a crazy Swiss dude called Yves Rossy, has somehow managed to attach himself to an engine and fly like a bird. Here’s his website. Here’s what some might call a gnarly video:

Private enterprise makes it easier – and faster.

This range of polls is more informative than the snapshot I linked to earlier today – and it suggests that Giuliani is much more resilient. One thing the aggregates say that I wasn’t expecting: Romney gets whomped by all the Democrats. Perhaps at this point, it’s mainly name recognition. But it’s not encouraging for the Romney supporters.

A reader notes:

From that article you linked to:

"One theory put forward by the researchers is that the females do it to attract males."

I guess if I was a guy koala I’d be all about that.

So a lesbian koala and a Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus walk into a bar …

Not a good idea.

You thought last night was boring? Well, this wasn’t boring. It was just horrifying. Rob Lowe’s singing defies belief:

Mr Frum has a cow about the report in the Sunday Times about military resistance to Dick Cheney’s desire to bomb Iran:

"Myself, I very much doubt that there is any actual content to the Times’ story. But leave that to one side. Isn’t it interesting how this story has made the left-wing blogosphere quiver in glee? Once upon a time, the prospect of generals defying civilian authority horrified liberals and leftists: "Seven Days in May", etc. Today however to be a liberal is to applaud when a special counsel tosses journalists in jail and to side with Douglas MacArthur over Harry Truman. Truly the world has turned upside down."

A reader notes:

Now, anyone who has actually watched Seven Days in May knows that it was about a military plot to overthrow the US government (probably inspired by a real-life plot against De Gaulle by generals who opposed his peace initiative in Algeria). The Sunday Times piece, if it’s accurate, indicated that a some generals and admirals would resign rather than implement an order to attack Iran. Obviously, there is a huge difference between an affirmative act of rebellion and a fairly minimal act of conscience.

Obviously.

It’s happening in South Africa too. I should add that I have mixed feelings about this development, and certainly don’t see it as some dreadful retreat. It’s a sign of cultural integration, which is something I’ve been fighting for most of my adult life. And integration need not mean the end of all difference. There is a critical distinction between integration and assimilation. After the Castro post, some of you asked for a link to my essay on the subject of two years ago. Here’s a pass-thru link courtesy of TNR, if you’re interested. Money quote:

Slowly but unmistakably, gay culture is ending. You see it beyond the poignant transformation of P-town: on the streets of the big cities, on university campuses, in the suburbs where gay couples have settled, and in the entrails of the Internet. In fact, it is beginning to dawn on many that the very concept of gay culture may one day disappear altogether. By that, I do not mean that homosexual men and lesbians will not exist–or that they won’t create a community of sorts and a culture that sets them in some ways apart. I mean simply that what encompasses gay culture itself will expand into such a diverse set of subcultures that "gayness" alone will cease to tell you very much about any individual. The distinction between gay and straight culture will become so blurred, so fractured, and so intermingled that it may become more helpful not to examine them separately at all.

An anti-Romney email from the former head of the state’s Christian coalition. Uh-oh.