The late queen mother, being driven in a Rolls-Royce through a stricken district of Manchester, England, said as she winced at the view, "I see no point at all in being poor." The Duke of St. Albans once told an interviewer that an ancestor of his had lost about 50 million pounds in a foolish speculation in South African goldfields, adding after a pause, "That was a lot of money in those days." The Duke of Devonshire, having been criticized in the London Times, announced in an annoyed and plaintive tone that he would no longer have the newspaper "in any of my houses."Get it?
September 1, 2008
Christopher Hitchens "can tell the difference between a true tumbrel remark and a false one."
And, he assures us, it's not John McCain saying -- asked about his houses -- "I think—I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where—I'll have them get to you." It's:
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John McCain did not acquire wealth (through marriage to his wife) until he was 45 years old. By that age, your view of the world is set and in place. It's ridiculous to say he is out of touch when he spent more than half his life in the middle class.
I love this paragraph. It is the pure, unadulterated truth. The only time politicians care about people is election time.
Every four years, we suddenly discover that the only people worth noticing or mentioning in the United States are those who are ill, or unemployed, or uninsured, or underpaid, or homeless, or some combination of the above. Bill and Hillary Clinton went on about these unprotected and wretched millions on two successive nights last week, apparently never reflecting that some of them at least must have been alive and suffering under the two Clinton administrations. How can a thinking person sit still and listen to such piffle, let alone get up and wave their arms about when they hear it again and again?
My personal experience has been that the less money the gubbmit takes from my paycheck the better I am able to purchase a new roof, pay someone to rehang my gutters, have a new water heater installed, etc. (Yes, I own a house as old as I am - and it's in better shape.)
All those jobs have one thing in common: blue collar workers perform them. Most of the contractors are owner/operated or local shops. No overhead from the 1,000 layers of 'crats that it takes to transfer money from me to them to the "needy."
Guess that makes me a Rethuglican.
-XC
PS - Favorite charity is the local "Free Bank" that lends money to people on the edge to keep them in their homes, in their cars, and with working telephones. A $500 loan at the right time at a 1% interest rate is a wonderous thing. And they have a 97% repayment rate.
Can the government do better than that?
I'm hoping he'll chime in on Sarah Palin. I haven't a clue as to how he'll react to her, whether it will be with charming wit or one of his vicious savagings.
...John McCain might actually not know the full extent of his joint property and that this could conceivably have been for the decent reason that he didn't care that much.
Key point that Hitchens made here. Some people happen to have nice things, but don't draw their identity from them. For them, stuff is simply stuff.
Personally, I don't care how many houses either candidate has. Apparently, McCain doesn't either. Apparently, it matters to the Obama camp. Who's the snob in that equation?
I don't know what a tumbrel remark is. I'd guess it's a good zinger directed at the authorities.
rhhardin said...
I don't know what a tumbrel remark is. I'd guess it's a good zinger directed at the authorities.
It is actually a tumbler remark; one made while drinking tumblers of alcohol. After awhile it turns into a tumbrel remark.
Someone should ask Obama and Biden how each of their 401K/Keogh plans are invested. What stocks, what mutual funds, how many shares, etc.
I have a lot less money than those cats and I don't know.
How much stuff does Cindy McCain own? Does she own any commercial property?
-XC
I think a tumbrel remark is either one you make in a tumbrel on your way to the guillotine (cause a tumbrel is the wagon that carried French aristocrats to the chopping block) or it's the type of remark that could lead to people wanting to put you in a tumbrel, as in "let them eat cake."
Tumbrel remark. Ace linked Ditty complaining about high gas prices (jet plane gas) while boarding a commercial aircraft. He goes, "I'm even flying coach!" Then sinks into an obviously first-class seat.
The comments to the video, "what is it? what is this? #12?, Ditty #12" are 100% of unsympathetic. Any one of the commenters would gladly remove his head.
Pity Hitchens did not go on and note the tactic works because American voters are easily manipulated morons.
There is probably some truth to the idea that John McCain has been insulated all his life to the lives of ordinary Americans in a typical community with typical economic and social constraints on their lifestyle and their neighbors.
McCain never drew a private sector paycheck in his life. He in the Navy, he lived a middle-class lifestyle supplemented by a wealthy Mom able to spring for a new sports car or so. But he lived in a separate reality. The military community is an American community, but it is not typical. Then he moved into Congress and a bubble - having to connect with people to get elected - but living apart from them in a world of vast Senatorial privilege and Cindy McCains mucho dinero..
But Obama is even more distant than McCain. He grew up in exotic places and then existed in a string of elite schools. He, like McCain, only forayed out to meet "regular Americans" to build his personal power base as an activist, then a politician. After a stint in an elite law firm, Obama in daytime rubbed shoulders with the hoi pollei as a "people's champion" and eager member of an "authentic black church", but in his time off, and at night it was all networking with the Power Elites.
Three families of Jewish billionaires (Crowns, Pritzkers, Klutzniks) adopted Barack and his wife, and through their power as patrons of U of Chicago, placed both Barack and his wife Michelle in lucrative, permanent, well-paying sinecures at the elite U of Chicago.
(For example, Michelle had her executive 119K-319K job at the Pritzker School of Medicine, hired in by the BOT lead by John Crown and Pritzker protege and Daley Machine apparachnik Valerie Jarrett.)
Starting when both had barely turned 30.
Complete with plush benefits like free private school for their kids, large expense accounts, and entree to meet other Elites in the ranks of wealthy philanthropists, academics outside the U of Chicago sphere - as Peer Elitists.
And kick up side business and revenue from various appointments given both Obamas. A little help in getting their mansion, private jet flights to Aspen, NYC, Hollywood to meet Glitterati sorts.
With a combined income of over 250K a year and the benefits, over almost 20 years, Michelle Obama's bitching about not affording to pay off her student loans yet is a pile of bullshit. Even without Baracks many millions in book sales.
She could have knocked off her loan payments with belt-tightening by the late 90s. (She of course omits how much she got in free scholarship as a black woman from a poor family and just how much or little she had to borrow)
But not enjoy the full elite lifestyle, so it made more sense to stretch them out - while getting the mansion and shopping like mad.
Both McCain and the Obamas have had a measure of cocooning. Same with Bidens being in the Senate for 36 years since before he even turned 30. Palin has had a fairly normal American life up to the last year - but "all-American" biography is not enough to vote for senior executive office on.
IMHO, McCain and Biden had to work their asses off to earn their place in the Elites. Palin is as admirable as the fish out of water she displayed after catching them in Alaska.
But the Obamas have been told they are special ever since both began attending elite schools as kids, and assembled a coterie of fabulously wealthy patrons schmootching their butts and giving them jobs and positions for nearly 20 years in a way that Biden and Palin never got, and McCain only got late in his life, and as Sloanasaurus said, long after McCains worldview, decidedly not elitist but "Navy meritocracy", was set and in place.
Hitch is a newly minted American. As such he has not yet absorbed that owning multiple homes in America is not the same as being royalty.
Cindy McCain's father, Jim Hensley came from a poor family but he was doing OK for himself when WWII came along.
At a certain point Jim Hensley got his young ass shot down while serving as a bombardier on a B-17 flying over Hitch's English Channel.
More than once apparently. DFC.
Defended by future Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, Jim was acquitted of, basically, moonshinin'.
I don't know much about Royalty but I feel like they are more likely to have been the revenuers in a story like this.
Anyway Jim Hensley had no silver spoon in his mouth and after, oh, about her 7th birthday Cindy came to be too sharp to ever have seen her Dad as a prince.
Her Dad's real life story is better than a fairy tale.
Hitch needs to lay off the sauce. McCain may not have remembered exactly how many investment properties his wife owns through investments and trusts, but unlike Obama, they never needed the help of a convicted criminal to buy their properties.
C4 is in his usual rare form. It's all a Zionist conspiracy. Of course he never explains why the conspiracy hasn't had him disappeared. The ZOG must be slipping.
C4 is in his usual rare form.
This made me do a double take: Cedarford posted to this thread?
I scrolled up, and sure enough,there's the diatribe. I've become so accustomed to skipping them I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore!
Cool. Now if I could just develop the same ability for posts by AlphaLiberal, DTL, and a few others...
Cedarford makes tummler remarks.
C'mon, that deserves an LOL.
Even from Cedarford.
A “true tumbrel remark”
TUMBREL is -- according to "Balderdash" which we played last night:
“A manure wagon”.
Apt!
I'm a more pica guy than elite.
Cubanbob - C4 is in his usual rare form. It's all a Zionist conspiracy.
Is the info on the Crown, Pritzker, and Klutznik Families cultivating - and acting as the Obama's mentors, benefactors, and employers for 20 years factual or not?
If you take the position that it may be true or not, but only Jews of all Americans should be immune from any criticism so it shouldn't be brought up, ever..then you demand we ignore 3 families with SDS members, two with ties to Bill Ayers.
With ties to Open Borders, radical progressivism, bringing along the Obamas for 20 years along with Abner Mikva, Wright, Ayers.
"One must never criticize Jews, but all others are allowed" and "While Jews may criticize everyone" sounds bad - when you put Jewish interests above American's interests, Cubabob...
Cedarford the tummler.
Attention must be paid to him!
Are we having fun yet?
"Cubanbob - C4 is in his usual rare form. It's all a Zionist conspiracy.
Is the info on the Crown, Pritzker, and Klutznik Families cultivating - and acting as the Obama's mentors, benefactors, and employers for 20 years factual or not?
If you take the position that it may be true or not, but only Jews of all Americans should be immune from any criticism so it shouldn't be brought up, ever..then you demand we ignore 3 families with SDS members, two with ties to Bill Ayers.
With ties to Open Borders, radical progressivism, bringing along the Obamas for 20 years along with Abner Mikva, Wright, Ayers.
"One must never criticize Jews, but all others are allowed" and "While Jews may criticize everyone" sounds bad - when you put Jewish interests above American's interests, Cubabob..."
C4 your a one trick pony. Its all about the Jews. Rev. Wright, let me guess, he is a Jew. Louis Farrakhan, he is also a Jew. Bill Ayers, another raving Zionist. The whole Chicago outfit/democrat machine. Genuine 100% pure Yid.
Naturally Arab and Muslim petro dollars in their trillions are powerless against a Yid dollar. All those Arabs and Muslims, in their hearts they are all loyal Americans, they would never put Arab or Muslim interests above America's interest. Neither would those loyal, patriotic one world communists like Ayers. Nope. Only Yids are capable of dual loyalties and duplicity.
So here you are trashing a genuine America hero, a man whose shorts you aren't worthy of lifting equating him with the nullity known as Obama. But then again Pat Buchanan has all but fellated Obama
which only proves that he never was a real conservative or republican but a now out the closet racial national socialist. Just like you.
Dude get a life and get thee to a shrink. Magical and cargo cult thinking will get you nowhere.
P.S. somebody needs to contact ZOG headquarters and remind them they are failing miserably since ole Pat and C4 are still among the living. That's not the Chicago way.
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