Althouse: "Winning is like shaving — you do it every day or you wind up looking like a bum."

May 4, 2009

"Winning is like shaving — you do it every day or you wind up looking like a bum."

From a list of quotes "to remember Jack Kemp by."

So am I supposed to remember that Jack Kemp was so wrong on so many levels?

23 comments:

goesh said...: -and cheap wine easily makes one feel like a king; 5/4/09, 9:27 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Maybe I'll go and shave in memory of Jack.

Or maybe not.; 5/4/09, 9:29 AM
Wince said...: Outside of clarifying that he was talking about men shaving their faces every day, these particular quotes don't remind me of how Kemp was "so wrong on so many levels".; 5/4/09, 9:30 AM
traditionalguy said...: The determination not to lose is seen as a dangerous trait to your rivals. But to your followers it is the Sine Qua Non of a leader who will not screw you over when things get rough. Do I sense that a Palin this way cometh?; 5/4/09, 9:32 AM
Anonymous said...: And what would a few of those "so many levels" be, pray tell?

This should be good.; 5/4/09, 9:34 AM
Bissage said...: It’s not Jack’s fault

His quote stirs trouble

He just abhors

A face with stubble

-- Burma Shave; 5/4/09, 9:44 AM
The Dude said...: A Burma shave comment will usually carry the day.

But thanks for reminding me why Mr. Kemp was a douche bag.

Guess it is time to peel the Dole/Kemp sticker off my truck.; 5/4/09, 9:48 AM
Fred4Pres said...: Specter, reminding us why he is one of the biggest mendacious jerks in the world.; 5/4/09, 10:29 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Fred,

OMG! Specter always seemed like a creep to me, but I had no idea he could be that creepy. Too bad the Democrats didn't say "H*ll no, we won't take you!"; 5/4/09, 11:02 AM
Christopher in MA said...: "If only those anti-science Rethuglicans hadn't cut funding for medical research, Jack Kemp might be alive today," saith the Specter.

Once a Democrat, always a Democrat. Good to see he hasn't lost anything off his fast ball.; 5/4/09, 11:18 AM
Big Mike said...: Kemp was so what on so may levels? I'm with rightwingprof -- please explain yourself, lady.; 5/4/09, 11:24 AM
Big Mike said...: I have no idea why commenters are so upset about Specter's inane remarks. Doesn't every liberal Democrat believe deep down inside that if we only threw enough money at any problem, it would be well and truly solved?; 5/4/09, 11:28 AM
Bissage said...: Abhorred?

Disliked.; 5/4/09, 11:40 AM
rhhardin said...: A good stubble growth is a winter bicycle commuter's friend.; 5/4/09, 11:54 AM
MadisonMan said...: I'm sure Kemp's death of cancer resonates with Specter, the cancer survivor. Still, his comment on funding is bizarre, even for a politician. Well, maybe not for a politician.; 5/4/09, 12:08 PM
Bob_R said...: Kemp was a serious wonk who loved to toy with idea. Even if you agreed with him on a lot of things (I did) you would find lots of things with which to disagree. (I did.)

Althouse, I thought you were going to purge the "so many levels" cliche. But the winning/shaving quote is strange unless he was talking about football.; 5/4/09, 12:10 PM
MadisonMan said...: One level I thought Kemp was very very very wrong on (Three verys!): His stance re: Gays. Why support dismissal of teachers only because the teacher is homosexual? Why support mandatory HIV testing?

He struck me as monumentally uninformed in those positions.; 5/4/09, 12:34 PM
Anonymous said...: MadisonMan,

Did Kemp support "mandatory HIV testing"? All I remember is that he wanted HIV transmission to be tracked in the same way we'd done for other potentially lethal communicable diseases.; 5/4/09, 2:09 PM
Anonymous said...: I admit that I have not yet shaved today. I do look like a bum, too.

Here's a short synopsis (with sources) about Kemp's stands on gay issues as of 1996.

I was surprised by his opposition to gay teachers as late as 1988. Ronald Reagan opposed a California initiative advocating the removal of gay teachers a decade earlier.; 5/4/09, 2:30 PM
MadisonMan said...: I believe he wanted mandatory testing of everyone who had HIV. That strikes me as a big waste of money.; 5/4/09, 2:45 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Of all politicians who leave a list of quotables behind Kemp might be the LEAST wrong on so many issues, especially in the modern era. With the exception of Reagan Jack Kemp would have made a far better president than everyone else he ran against -- including his running mate Bob Dole.; 5/4/09, 4:28 PM
Anonymous said...: MadisonMan,

I believe he wanted mandatory testing of everyone who had HIV.

Mandatory testing for what? Seeing as how these people, by hypothesis, were already known to have HIV...

That strikes me as a big waste of money.

Yeah, it would be. Systematically testing the known carriers of a virus to see if they carried the virus would be pretty dumb.

It's unclear to me what he actually did advocate. Some Web sites suggest that he wanted everyone with AIDS to be tested for HIV. That would make some sense, especially back in the days when it wasn't universally accepted that HIV caused AIDS.

Other sites say that he wanted cases of AIDS to be mandatorially reported and contacts traced and notified, as we do with cases of other potentially lethal infectious diseases. That squares with my own recollection.

It still seems to me the obvious thing to do when you're faced with a disease that is killing lots of people, but in the mid-80s that was an extremely controversial proposition wrt AIDS. Keeping people's sexuality properly confidential really did seem a bigger priority than did making sure that the people they'd possibly infected knew of their own danger, or than did preventing them from infecting yet others.; 5/4/09, 5:09 PM
Revenant said...: Mandatory testing for what? Seeing as how these people, by hypothesis, were already known to have HIV...

Mandatory testing of people with HIV, for HIV.

Yes, the bill really was as dumb as it sounds.; 5/6/09, 8:34 PM