Archives
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Odds and Ends
As
always, InstaPunk remains at the center of the passing parade.
WILLIE.21.1-2. A lot of sloppy stupid stuff going on, but not much that's worthy of an essay-type post. So maybe you'll forgive me for a series of non sequiturs that don't add up to anything but a self-satisfied InstaPunk smirk.
Trump is out. Color me bored. As I predicted, he found out PDQ that politics is a blood sport in which even self-ordained titans can be laid low in seconds. Still, I have to concede that Big Hollywood had a point about a certain debt of gratitude we probably owe him.
Speaking of Big Hollywood, this was a delightful reminiscence about John Wayne, and this was an educational reminder about the substance of Ronald Reagan and the careless viciousness of the left-wing media.
Schwarzenegger. Pretty tired of the celebrity rules in Kally-FOR-neea. No journalist could have sussed this out when he ran in the first place? Were they protecting Ahnold or their only frail link to the Kennedy royalty? Doesn't matter. The whole episode is very Hollywood, very Kennedy, and very over the top. Just like the whole bankrupt state of Kally-FOR-neea. Do I care? Not at all.
Huckabee's out, too. I thought, to be honest, that it was a non-item. But then I heard him as a guest on a local Philly talk radio show. Not being a candidate apparently empowers him to speak more bluntly about what he thinks. My jaw dropped when he dared to say what so many people know but don't have the nerve to express: Obama is a shallow thinker, bright, sure, but not penetrating enough to be even a passable president. He also described contemporary American politics as a kind of cesspool (my distillation, not his words), in which money can elevate the worst over the best. Maybe Huckabee does have a role to play in the upcoming campaign follies. I'm reevaluating.
Three cheers for Hillary. The first major political figure to give the finger to Jimmy Carter he's richly deserved throughout his self-serving post-presidential bid for acclaim. Asked if she wanted to meet with him after his trip to North Korea, she said, "No." Then she elaborated. "HELL no."
Three more Republican candidates are all but out. Gingrich mouthed off the cuff once too often. Good riddance. His lame support for ethanol and global warming alarmism was already a fatal long-term problem. His betrayal of Paul Ryan's brave effort to address the budget and the deficit were the last straw. Huntsman is done before he even got started. He accepts global warming because 90 percent of scientists do, which they don't. Add to that his gushing praise for the leadership of Obama and nobody will vote for him in the primaries. Thank goodness. And Mitt Romney refused to admit that RomneyCare in Massachusetts was a mistake. He prefers to quibble about bureaucratic differences between the progam that's bankrupting Massachusetts and the ObamaCare program that will bankrupt the United States. Nobody wants to hear why Romney is technically blameless for an evidently socialist government intrusion into the health care mess he personally sponsored and passed into law.
O'Reilly debated Jon Stewart on the subject of the rapper Common's invitation to the White House. He lost. Because he never made the only point that matters. The president can invite anyone he wants to the White House. (Dumb as hell to stake your whole position on opposition to that elemental truth.) But is it a good idea? In this case, no. Bad PR move. We already know how Obama feels about white cops interacting with African-Americans. This wasn't a good time to remind everyone that he's black first and American second. But neither O'Reilly nor Stewart could bring themselves to mention the elephant in the room. You know. We're all too polite to bring up race. Advantage lefties. Stewart was the cleverer one, but his smarts can't overcome presidential stupids.
Nancy Pelosi's congressional district accounted for 20 percent of April's waivers of compliance with ObamaCare. You couldn't make this stuff up. Nothing to see here. Move along.
60 percent of the French think Americans set up the IMF chairman with sexual assault charges. Those would be the same French who think Roman Polanski sodomizing a 13-year-old is not so much rape as droit de seigneur. And they can't understand why the "no bail" decision. Maybe they should ask Roman about that.
InstaPunk had something of a set-to (see Comments, too) with the Ron Paul faithful. Now they're uncharacteristically silent. Somehow I don't think they're bored. I think they're tongue-tied.
And, finally, just for fun, Apotheosis posted this photo in a comment on our latest post about the deerhound Raebert.
All I can tell you is, that dog's NOT Raebert. If there's a more comfortable spot to be had, he's in it. Trust me.
I know you do. Because I'm at the center of everything...
