Pun Salad

Proverbs 29:24 continues our hot streak of verses relevant to current events:

The accomplices of thieves are their own enemies; they are put under oath and dare not testify.

Is Hillary still under investigation? If so, pay attention to 29:24, Huma Abedin.

Also: have a good Fat Tuesday. Or "Shrove" Tuesday. As in: "Do these pants make me look shrove?"

• <voice imitation="professor_farnsworth">Good news, everyone!</voice> James Taranto's must-read "Best of the Web Today" at the WSJ has been reborn as "Best of the Web", and James Freeman is the new curator. His initial effort, "Trump and the Media" is strong.

  Who says Donald Trump is against entitlement reform? While he probably won’t propose changes to Medicare or Social Security in his first budget proposal, the President seems eager to consider whether all members of the media establishment should continue to enjoy privileges not available to the average citizen.

  Like Dubya, I'm all for a free press. But there's no special mention in the First Amendment exalting the NYT or CNN as higher beings in the pantheon.

• And you may ask yourself: Where are the solutions? Fortunately, A. Barton Hinkle (at Reason) knows: "The Solutions Are Sitting Around a Campfire, Not In Congress". It is a response/rebuttal to the Nick Eberstadt Commentary article we previously blogged.

  Hinkle recommends a couple of counterbalances: (1) HumanProgress.org, a site devoted to illuminating reasons for long-term optimism; (2) "try spending a few days with a Cub Scout pack."

  To begin with, you will not hear word one about President Trump. That in itself is a blessing. Because no matter how you feel about Trump, the topic is guaranteed to enrage: Either you are enraged by what the president is doing, or you are enraged by all the people who are enraged by it. The man must be the country's No. 1 salesman for hypertension medication.

  Having lived through the 1960-1979 era, I am firmly in the "We will muddle through. Somehow. Probably. I hope." camp.

• At NR, John-Clark Levin asks the musical question: "What’s a Reluctant Trump Voter to Do?" Now, I was not a Trump voter (where have you gone, Gary Johnson?), but I think Levin's answer is pretty good: demand accountability.

  First, we must fight the psychological pressure to rationalize and defend everything Trump does. Many of my friends and colleagues voted for Trump with eyes wide open, acknowledging him as a menace, but now twist themselves into partisan pretzels explaining away each fresh outrage. Moral, thoughtful, humane people I love and admire now look me in the eye and straight-facedly justify mocking a disabled reporter or grabbing a stranger’s vulva. Put simply, Donald Trump leads good people to support bad things. If you voted for him, you now have a strong incentive to stick with him rather than confront his odiousness. Recognize the power of this ethical undertow and swim against it.

  I've grepped, and this is the first appearance of "vulva" at Pun Salad in its twelve-year history.

• Via Instapundit, Brad Torgersen describes: "How the ctrl-Left make it impossible to be a Nice Conservative"

  I’ve slowly, gradually, achingly reached the conclusion that for a committed ctrl-Leftist, there is not now, nor can there ever be, a Good Conservative. There are Nice Conservatives—who will of course be patted on the head and given table scraps, for being willfully second class human beings in the hierarchy of moral perfection—but there are no Good Conservatives.

  Now, I think Torgersen is wrong on many levels. His metaphors are uncompelling, his proposed strategy is ineffective and soul-rotting. It's possible and desirable to be "nice".

  If you want me to go on about this I will.… <crickets> OK, I won't.

  But, as a retired computer geek, I dearly love the "ctrl-Left" label as a counterpart to the alt-Right that we've been hounded with for month after month. Never seen it before, didn't realize it was a thing, but it's genius. As inappropriate as I find the one-dimensional classification of modern political beliefs based on seating arrangements of the National Assembly in eighteenth-century France… I'm gonna use it whenever I possibly can.

• Jerome Tucille has passed away. I still have a copy of his 1971 book It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand (numerous editions still available at Amazon), and was one of the gravitational influences on my thinking that landed me here, wherever that is.

  All this time, I didn't know how to pronounce his name. (Thanks to the NYT, it's too-CHILLY.)

  His son, J. D. Tuccille remembers him semi-fondly at Reason. RIP.