URLs du Jour

2013-01-01

Happy New Year! Try not to think too hard about the weasels in Washington DC. Weasel catches mouse

  • You don't want to go too far into 2013 without remembering the year past, and I would suggest Dave Barry's Year in Review as the best way to do that. For example, in September:

    Abroad, the big story is a deadly 9/11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. It soon becomes apparent that the attack either was or was not a spontaneous protest to a movie that either does or does not actually exist, or possibly it was an organized terrorist attack that either did or did not involve al Qaeda and either could or could not have been prevented if there had been better intelligence, which maybe there was, or maybe there was not, although if there was, it was not acted on, possibly for political reasons. Or, not. But beyond these basic facts, little is clear. The White House issues a strong statement assuring the nation that President Obama was not in any way involved in this, "or anything else that may or may not become known."

    Yeah, that's pretty much as I remember.

  • But seriously: Kevin D. Williamson continues to write compelling stuff, in this case, how to win the war of ideas with progressivism. It's longish, but read it anyway. Kevin (I call him Kevin) offers three observations about the differences in attitudes/prejudices between Them and Us, which I'll copy here:

    1. Progressives and those who sympathize with them are economically risk-averse compared with conservatives.
    2. Progressives benefit enormously from the fact that economic inequality matters much more to Americans than conservatives like to admit.
    3. Conservatives see people as assets, and progressives see people as liabilities.

    These (in turn) have serious implications for both the content of viable conservative proposals and how they should be marketed. Read The Whole Thing™.

  • Did Republicans deserve to lose? Find out the thrilling answer in Thomas Sowell's new article "Republicans Deserved to Lose". He refers back to a year-old prophetic WSJ column by Bret Stephens bemoaning the GOP presidential field that (by then) was pretty much Mitt and Newt, seeing Mitt as "hollow". Sowell continues:

    Yet this is not just about Mitt Romney. He is only the latest in a long series of presidential candidates backed by a Republican establishment that seems convinced that ad hoc "moderation" is where it's at -- no matter how many of their ad hoc moderates get beaten by even vulnerable, unknown, or discredited Democrats.

    I despair.


Last Modified 2017-12-02 4:44 AM EDT