Should it prove true that the crown prince emerges from South Carolina with sufficient momentum to capture the nomination, what is an Oppositionist to do? We certainly are staunch opponents of the current regime and its barely thwarted Christian socialist authoritarianism (embers remain and massive institutional damage inflicted nonetheless). We also truly support the netroots heroic efforts over the last few years fighting when no one else have the courage to do so.
Yet, the alternative presented — the crown prince — is absolutely without any meaningful experience (executive or even legislative) and has coasted on two things — he is black (but not a black American as commonly understood from the traditional civil rights activist progeny meaning) and he gives a good speech. Oh, and he says “change” alot.
Perhaps it is a paucity of alternatives against the Republican Easter Egg/Remember 911/Surge Forever crowd. The crown prince as vp to gain some more DC experience on HOW to exert change beyond CHANTING for it makes more sense to the Stiftung. That ticket is not possible anymore given the rancor among the candidates.
We can not roll the dice again after 2000 going with a blank slate and hoping for the best. Good intentions are meaningless unless competently executed and in fact if incompetently introduced a God send to the other side.
Absent something truly dramatic, this modest blog will pass on the crown prince. It will be interesting in the days ahead to touch base with some folks and see what their Republican focus group and polling data shows.
Comment says
We’re not sure what to make of McCain’s choice of ABBA theme music. “Take a Chance on Me!” – Contrarian.
Anon says
Here’s Obama’s strength – self-styled adamantine rock ribbed right winger Rod Dreher is posting a defensive critique by Spengler. But he’s not feeling it – He’ll change his mind. Does Obama’s speech add up? It did when he he gave it – His oration was earnest. He believed what he said when he said it. Tomorrow is another day and Dreher and Douthat and other bookish rightists are all hoping against their ideology because they are sick and tired of defending the torturers and war criminals on their side.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/01/spengler-no-barack-we-cant.html
Tbilisi says
RE: Stalin vs Trotsky
“George Galloway used to get beaten up by wee girrls. I know. My sister was one of them.”
Just some biodata on George Galloway I heard a few years ago while in a pub down the road (or rrroood, as they say) from Gorgeous George’s high school in his native Dundee.
A Random Quote says
“It was like getting a permission slip to be idealistic again.”
~Friend of Ezra’s Klein’s
friend describing her being
influenced by Kennedy endorsement
to switch from being a HRC fundraiser
to becoming an Obama supporter
A Random Quote says
“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.”
~Ezra Klein 1-4-08
(refusing to pass the bong)
Anon says
Stalin V. Trotsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d0DKbbv0Lg
A Random Quote says
“In 2004, the British state broadcasting arm, the BBC, aired a three-part documentary called the “Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.” According to this film, the threat of Al Qaeda and radical Islam was a foil for a broader neoconservative power grab. The two radical movements are equivalent, relying on one another to scare the good and decent majorities of Europe and America.
Mr. Obama would never say anything this strident. Part of his appeal is that at his best he transcends partisanship. But the “politics of fear” signals the left’s own scary narrative about the Bush years, namely that our government was taken over by neoconservatives briefly to launch the Iraq war.”
~Eli Lake
NY Sun 1-28-08
(searching for his thread)
Aldershot says
Tough room. I thought it was valid and note-worthy information.
Comment says
Loury can kiss our black ass for all we care – Re Flashman – Derb has been pushing Flashman for years – We read one of them a while ago when too young, but since the author recently dies we decided to dig into our collection and read them. Flashman is the fictional memoir of the bully in Tom Brown schooldays. He chronicles the 19th century from his POV and it’s hilarious and great education.
Dr.LeoStrauss says
Loury should remember that even in this election there have blatant cadence changes for audience appeal beyond the crown prince. And, as noted, in general, be a man and STFU.
The double posting of Jonah is superb performance art as communication. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
(New item coming later today).
A Random Quote says
Sorry about that double posting – Very fascistic of us, but accidental.
A Random Quote says
“Lastly … co-opting conservative institutions and making them un-conservative is exactly what the Nazis did, as I conceded above. But so what? Isn’t this precisely what the New Left did, by following Gramsci’s advice to launch a “long march through the institutions”? Isn’t that what the left did in this country, transforming one conservative foundation and institution after another into left-wing or liberal institutions? Most private colleges and universities in this country started out as conservative institutions. Now look at the Ivy League, look at Georgetown, look at the Ford foundation, public libraries, English departments, the mainstream media, museums, main line churches, the AMA, ABA and about a million other three letter acronymned organizations. These were all co-opted by the left to one extent or another and now they are part of a liberal gleichschaltung where political correctness rules and deviation from “progressive” ideas is increasingly treated as a thought-crime. Co-opting conservative institutions for political ends is decidedly un-conservative in my book, literally and figuratively.”
~Jonah Goldberg
NRO 1-26-08
(Irony unbound and unintended)
A Random Quote says
“Lastly … co-opting conservative institutions and making them un-conservative is exactly what the Nazis did, as I conceded above. But so what? Isn’t this precisely what the New Left did, by following Gramsci’s advice to launch a “long march through the institutions”? Isn’t that what the left did in this country, transforming one conservative foundation and institution after another into left-wing or liberal institutions? Most private colleges and universities in this country started out as conservative institutions. Now look at the Ivy League, look at Georgetown, look at the Ford foundation, public libraries, English departments, the mainstream media, museums, main line churches, the AMA, ABA and about a million other three letter acronymned organizations. These were all co-opted by the left to one extent or another and now they are part of a liberal gleichschaltung where political correctness rules and deviation from “progressive” ideas is increasingly treated as a thought-crime. Co-opting conservative institutions for political ends is decidedly un-conservative in my book, literally and figuratively.”
~Jonah Goldberg
NRO 1-26-08
Anon says
Loury should STFU or he should get together with Steele and admit jealousy – Let the man be who he wants to be. If he doesn’t win it will be because people doubt his experience level. JFK choose to be a wasp, in some respects. Who cares? Loury, Steele and others offer a Tweety-like recipe for sadness with their boxes, categories, and diagrams.
Life is not fair and the crown prince is the recipient of many unearned blessings – There are Republicans all over the country who dread exposure of their college level and beyond recreational drug use. They will all squeal like stuck pigs about Obama’s admitted drug use if he gets the nod. But to no avail. Obama’s just cool enought to get away with things like that and others aren’t.
Anon says
Tough Guys, Tough Dolls:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2Y0NDM0Njc3MGVkMTE5ZjFjNDUzYzNjMTZlMGNmYjE=
Aldershot says
Glenn Loury reports that Obama purposely chose a ‘black’ identity by adopting a voice with a black cadence, choosing black friends, etc.
Anon says
re Sibel Edmunds – and the Times – Interesting that the Murdoch press is unspooling this narrative in London. Nothing really new – just drip drop drip. Each episode a bit more odd seeming. But we are not impressed with worries over the Libya getting bomb designs. So what – when the Bushies bragg about ending their bomb program it sounds like BS.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3257725.ece
Dr.LeoStrauss says
Aldershot, tried the link and came up nada? Maybe my browser?
What did they say at the site?
Dr.LeoStrauss says
ML and Martin both have excellent points, which highlight the conundrum. Are we prepared to roll the dice again?
Aldershot says
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/8136?in=40:13&out=43:54
Comment says
We just saw McCain and Lieberman on c-span. We’ve always liked both men as personalities and enjoy when they show up on Carson or Letterman and josh around. They were speaking to prosperous Floridians and presenting their genial warmonger vision to all those would be elderly Imperialists. So we just has to shake our heads at the weirdness of it all. Earlier we heard Michael Barone complain about the Dems as insufficiently chauvinistic and martial and religious. Maybe Barone should stop living out his own existential insecurities in his politics – He even made a Tweety-like hair joke about colleg professors. Barone, Frum, Tweety, etc – They are all same even though they all hate each other.
Comment says
We voted against HRC in the Dem primary and general election in 2000. We were disappointd that Moynihan endorsed her etc. But we did admire the way she just kicked Lazio’s ass all over the place and we thought she did a good job overall and that won our respect. Overtime the weird loathing against her by people like Tweety and other boomer pundits got old quick and we began to see it as a manifestation of something weird and retrograde within them. But the Clintons’ conduct this past week remided us of their aboriginally loathsome core – that nameless force that once worried us. Obama’s campaign has generally been positive and future focused. We do understand Leo’s experience concerns and sometimes worry (then remind ourselves of Cheney and the war criminals). But we think S. Carolina’s blacks definately vouched for his blackness – right withing spitting distance of Fort Sumnter.
Aldershot says
Doc, all this hemming and hawing is going to give you an ulcer…tell us what you REALLY think. *wink*
So, what’s your analysis of Hillary? Am I the only one with the heart-sinking feeling?
A Random Quote says
“America’s foremost black intellectual.”
~George Will
(Crowning Shelby Steele)
Comment says
Tweety and the others have so mislead people (and themselves) that they totally miss stating the fact that Clinton was obviously po’d by Obama’s linking him with Nixon vis-a-vis Reagan’s transformation. This was so offensive to him that he was unable to contain himself,.
Comment has always compared Clinton to Nixon and most people we know thought we were nuts to makes this linkage- Obviously the differencs are great – especially surface differences. But both brilliant men were hobbled by complex character traits that also helped propel them. They both shared this tragic quality.
Tweety and others lie and they say Obama’s “ideas” comment was about Reagan – But the Ideas comment was obviously about Newt V. Clinton.
Obama’s was able to dis Clinton twice, in a polite way, and the Tweety media misreported it and Clinton’s loathing was seen out of context.
Comment says
Drudge must have loved being able to post a headline “REBUKE” against Clinton on the tenth anniversery of the Monica and to add on a: ‘Bill Clinton: Obama is just like Jesse Jackson’ tag.
We distinctly recall those days – how Frank Rich said no one reads Drudge and then prematurely trying to bury him etc. We did change our opinion about one thing – we are pretty sure Monica wrote the ‘talking points’ and at that time we thought they were written for her. Yikes – All this crap is now coming back. Part of our Obama advocacy is a desire to ‘move on.’ Cheney and his experienced war criminals do highlight Barack’s relative immaturity, but …
Comment says
“CHANGE” – You have to give Barack credit for finding a graphic artist who managed to make posters that make that otherwise ordinary word appear novel and exciting.
Naive Idealist: “Let’s make up posters that just say ‘CHANGE’ and see if that works!”
Tweety panelist: “Are you high?”
Martin Wisse says
Compared to previous campaigns, I don’t think Obama and Clinton have been that nasty to each other, so there is the possibility of the first serving a term as vice president.
On the other hand, the last Democratic vice president who actually became president was LBJ, so not sure Obama would want to.
ML says
It’s true that Obama probably doesn’t know where the bodies are buried; it’s not even clear to me that he understands that there are bodies. Unfortunately, Clinton knows where the bodies are buried because she helped bury them.