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Friday, December 16, 2011
Took this self-portrait with my iPhone and the Camera+ App!
With the edit function I was able to minimize the forehead
wrinkles and bulging eyes. What do you think? Handsome?
TOUCHED A NERVE IN THE COMMENTS. Apparently, our formerly courteous Chevalier ("Still one of the best blogs on the web, period. At least when the Punkfather is flat out wrong, he argues his case with grace and style.") has had a major change of heart:
You egotistical senile old fool.
The rest of us were watching Gingrich when he was booted from Congress on multiple ethics charges [ED. NOT TRUE] by Conservatives, when his multiple ex-wives say not just that they don't like him because of the divorce but that he's a lying, evil SOB [GOSSIP], when he was buddying up with Liberal Democrats for the past decade plus [UNLIKE PERRY, ROMNEY & HUNTSMAN], supporting all of the LibDem causes [ALL? REALLY?], and when he was getting million-dollar payoffs from LibDem pet institutions [NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT ONE EITHER. ANYMORE THAN I AM ABOUT ROMNEYCARE OR PAULISTA DISARMAMENT]. Where the heck were you? [RIGHT HERE, PAL. LONG BEFORE YOU. I ALSO SAW HIM DEMOLISH BILL BUCKLEY IN A FORMAL DEBATE ABOUT THE PANAMA CANAL TREATY. WHERE WERE YOU? DIDN'T SEE YOU.][HE'S A FUCKING POLITICIAN. NEVER DENIED IT.]
You must be losing your mind. And apparently so willing to swallow a big load of Newt that you're citing Newt's own boy as "proof" that Newt is a conservative who can get things done. That's a real comfort, one lying, unethical SOB on the payroll of another lying, unethical SOB. Great!
"We've never seen a Republican campaign like this before?" Are you freaking kidding me? We saw this campaign in 2008! And Obama beat the squishy "friends across the aisle" RINO that time, too!
When you're ready to pull your head out of your behind and present an argument based on reality, maybe I'll come back here. But until then, goodbye. It's too bad you're so ready to sell out all of your principles and good sense because Newt jammed some lingo down your throat. Go buy some Vaseline buddy, you're about to get plowed. [A CONCLUDING QUESTION: YOU SEEM PREOCCUPIED WITH HOMOSEXUAL IMAGERY. HAVE YOU SHARED THIS WITH THE OTHER 'CHEVALIERS' IN YOUR TROUPE? MAYBE IT WOULD REDUCE THE LEVEL OF YOUR HYSTERIA...? JUST A THOUGHT.]
Egotistical. Senile. Old. Fool. Hmmmm. I'm thinking about it............ uh, no. Except for the egotistical part, which all writers have to be if you think about it. We do tend to place some stock in what we have to say. Mostly, what I said in the offending post was 1) Since everyone's piling on Newt, maybe you should expose yourselves to a dissenting view, and 2) Watch the most significant debate yet and make up your own minds. I even encouraged readers to disregard the personal opinions I'd expressed. If that's enough to drive anybody away, so be it. You've made up your mind. Maybe that's a good thing even if I don't think it's the right thing. Go in peace. (I may have a little more to say about this comment later, but all in good time, though I'll note that it is possible to forfeit the "grace and style" privilege here. You wouldn't enjoy it if I got really angry.)Now for the comment that may deserve some specific response. Skinny Devil responded:
RL said:
"Everyone for Bachmann, Perry, Paul, or Santorum is already conceding the election. Everyone for Romney is making a totally irrational bet that he will perform better as president than he did as governor of Massachusetts."
I must have missed that. Exactly what Bachmann, Perry, Paul, & Santorum supporters think their guy will lose to Obama?
My 2 cents (which won't even buy a cup of coffee anymore, so...) is that Santorum would get killed by Obama, Perry might lose to Obama, but Bachmann or Paul (or even the sadly forgotten Huntsman) would destroy Obama.
Obama is one-term unless republicans TOTALLY drop the ball.
Skinny's two cents may be as good as mine, but it's not as if I haven't shared my reasoning about the "Little Four" before. (Do a name search.) Still, I'm willing to update it based on current information, including last night's debate. Which I'll do after I address Skinny's final sentence.Obama is incompetent at everything but winning elections. But don't ever discount how good he is at that. He'll have about a billion dollars to spend distorting, smearing, destroying the credentials of his Republican opponent. He'll have the mainstream media on his side from first to last, and even the mounting scandals of his administration will not be brought to light by the major media outlets. The major network debate formats will be designed to make him look presidential and his opponent insignificant or worse. Many polls currently show that a plurality of voters still blame George W. Bush and the Republicans more than they blame Obama for the continuing economic morass, other polls show that the MSM's smear job on the Tea Party has been effective, and all MSM coverage from now on should be considered Obama campaign publicity: From August to November 2012, daily headlines from Europe and the middle east can and will be spun to make him seem the victim of forces beyond anyone's control, no matter what terrible things happen. (In the 1980 election, the Dem line was that the presidency was too hard a job for anyone, hence all the putrid results; it might have worked except that the media hated Carter's smug Christian self-righteousness.) Scare the voters enough and they will reelect Obama in self-defense.
Obama is not Carter. He starts somewhere between 10 and 12 points ahead at the ballot box, which is like starting a football game for the national championship up by two touchdowns. It's absolutely not true that "Obama is one-term unless republicans TOTALLY drop the ball." On the contrary, Republicans have to do everything right to boot Obama out of office.
Where does that leave us with the "Little Four"? I'm sympathetic to the argument that a true conservative could win, but it would take a Reagan, and not one of these candidates is a Reagan or anywhere near it.
Bachmann. She's smart, attractive, and at times articulate. She also got in some good shots against Gingrich last night (until she overplayed her hand). But she has weaknesses that will be used like hammers against her in a general election, and she has a tendency to start playing the sexism card when hammers are flying around. ("I'm a serious candidate! Stop dissing me!") Not good. Her staff is second-rate; they prepare her with scripted talking points (frequently dumb) that she lacks the spontaneity to make seem her own and doesn't know when to let go of -- the "Newt Romney" bit, for example. But they do not prepare her with sound information. She made the mistake last night of citing "Politifact" as proof that her charges against Newt in the prior debate were accurate. Politifact responded with an immediate denial, citing her well under .500 batting average on facts they'd previously researched from her and her campaign. The Oral Roberts degree is a problem. Her insistence on making abortion opposition a major part of her campaign is a problem. The laugh potential of a husband who believes homosexuality can be "cured" is a problem. The fact that so much of her base and financial support comes from the Tea Party is a problem.
I grant you her supporters may think she can win. But imagine all the ways Obama will run against her. Against Sarah Palin Lite. Against Oral Roberts University. Against her mechanical public performances (Stepford wife?). Against her probably closeted-and-denying-it gay husband. Against that racist Tea Party connection. Against her weak grasp of the facts on any given subject. And there will come a time when she will wilt under a kind of pressure she hasn't yet had the wit to foresee, or we'd have heard her real voice emerge from the rote campaign rhetoric as we have with Palin.
Santorum. Even you concede he's toast. So apparently it doesn't matter all that much to you if a candidate's supporters think he can win...
Paul. Michelle Bachmann absolutely cleaned his clock in last night's debate. He was left spluttering and unable to finish his own sentences during their exchange on Iran. Look up the clip. Speaking of "egotistical senile old fools..." No Republican can win the presidency without the support of old-fashioned national security Republicans. They will stay home. Discount me all you will on this. But they're a population of mature and older voters who remember the Cold War and the dangers of the world, and whom the Republican Party absolutely counts on to vote. If they stay home, all is lost: that's the two touchdowns the Republicans won't be able to make up.
Worse, Paul's supporters are his own worst enemy, which would become clear if he actually became the candidate. They torch every criticism, every expression of opposition, and they can mount internet campaigns against their targets that are guaranteed to turn off casual supporters by revealing the lockstep fanaticism of their, uh, movement. And btw, if the MSM is presently downplaying or omitting reportage of Paul's past newsletters, which flirt with everything from anti-semitism to Trutherism to racism, do NOT expect that not to become the centerpiece of an Obama campaign against him. They'd looooove to run against Ron Paul because he makes Obama's troubled relations with Israel and Jewish voters look good by comparison.
Perry. The N-Word rock. The N-Word rock. The N-Word rock. 24/7 on every TV station in the country. Was there anything else? Oh, yeah, maybe a few more things. Another Texas governor. Oh how Obama would love to run against George W. Bush one more time. And all the better if the latest incarnation of GW is the kind of Texas oaf who thinks the United States was founded in the 1600s. And, me, I can't help thinking -- and dreading -- the world-shattering October Surprise that's probably already safely under lock-and-key.
Huntsman. Good luck with that. I've nothing much against him but the fact that nobody knows who he is. Maybe he's great. Didn't show me much last night... I guess he better get going if he's going to be president.
Why I think Romney and Gingrich have the best chance to win. And I do think we can win.
I'll close by circling back to the Chevalier's scorn about my characterization of this election. He said:
No. I'm not freaking kidding you. It's not 2008 because Obama is an incumbent, for one thing. And for another thing, the fact that Independents are looking for a good excuse to vote against Obama this time when last time they were already in the bag before the campaign ever started. Yet, in the face of this, the off-putting internecine nastiness on our side of the fence, long before the first primary vote has occurred, is striking. Interestingly, the National Review's Jonah Goldberg felt compelled today to respond to some "chevaliers" who launched bitter attacks against the NR editorial which conspicuously did NOT endorse Gingrich yesterday. I'm going to quote him some and let you be the judge of any relevance it has to our discussions here:
Now on to some of the unfair, hyperbolic and just plain weird charges.
First of all, what is with this complaint
that we are trying to “dictate” who people vote for? I don’t get it. We
are, as always, an opinion magazine sharing our opinion. It is not
binding... In 1980, WFB
kept the magazine from endorsing Reagan (Bill loved the Gipper but had
grave concerns about his age). We endorsed Mitt Romney in 2008, for
many of the same reasons some of our biggest detractors today did — to
stop John McCain.
As I suggested above, some critics of our
editorial fault us for not outright endorsing Romney, others complain
that we endorse him too much. If you’re a committed opponent of Romney
— or a committed fan – those are all fair gripes. But some of our
friends should at least consider the possibility that such nuances
reflect both internal differences as well as the messiness of political
reality. A conservative, James Burnham argued in the debates over
endorsing Nixon in 1960, “has to set his course within the frame
of reality.” Burnham supported endorsing Nixon on the grounds that the
real enemies were supporters of Kennedy. Frank Meyer, meanwhile,
argued that endorsing Nixon would be a surrender to the Eisenhower
liberalism the magazine had been criticizing for years. Bill found
arguments on both sides compelling. So what did he do? He punted,
endorsing no one. “National Review,” he wrote, “was not founded
to make practical politics. Our job
is to think, and write.”...
When have I suggested here that you not make up your own minds? I just like to add grist to the mill. And if that fills you with bile, then I'd ask why. Because like Jonah, I'm equally concerned about "candidates for the captain’s chair that leave us unsure." And like the rest of you, I'm just trying to navigate my way through it.
