Is this getting politicized? Of course it is, but let's listen to 2 key players, President Biden...
Here is Joe Biden throwing Kamala under the bus when he’s asked directly today if DeSantis should take her call. He hates her. This is two days in a row of insulting her. He never takes questions. He was waiting for this one. Again. pic.twitter.com/skCx8HASH8
🚨JUST IN: Ron DeSantis shut down CNBC host that accused him of politicizing Hurricane Milton!
THIS is how you handle the Fake News!
DeSantis: “I didn't even know she was trying to reach me, but she has no role in this process… and I've been dealing with these storms in… pic.twitter.com/uHoaJYnmIN
The photo, the headline, and the caption say it all, don't you think? Must we go on to read this thing? I've come this far without reading it. Why are we called to loathe this man, Josh Hawley, as he "gestures toward a crowd of Donald Trump supporters"?
Well, Josh Hawley wrote a book called "Manhood," so he's asking for it and I'll give you a little of what French has to say:
I’ve always been pretty agnostic on Peterson. But this is not good. If a leftwing icon was asked “Do you believe in God” and they answered “It depends” on the meaning of “you,” “do” or “believe” (nevermind “God”) the mockery from many Peterson fans would be wild. https://t.co/ZlyQooFZmm
It's not just Jonah Goldberg. Peterson is trending on Twitter and it's mostly about this clip. We're living in a time when your worst few seconds will be ripped out of context and held up to discredit you. Better never to speak on camera at all than to risk creating one of these horrible clips to be used against you.
We're created a mediascape where only the cocky and reckless will speak freely. Ironically, Peterson will be one of those people. Everyone else will shrink out of public view.
If artists lose themselves in fantasies of independence, they become the tool of malefactors, who prefer to keep art apart from politics so that the work of oppression can continue undisturbed. So Mann wrote in an afterword to a 1937 book about the Spanish Civil War, adding that the poet who forswears politics is a “spiritually lost man.”...
[During] the time that the novelist spent at [Princeton U]niversity between 1938 and 1941... Mann called for “social self-discipline under the ideal of freedom”—a political philosophy that doubles as a personal one. He also said, “Let me tell you the whole truth: if ever Fascism should come to America, it will come in the name of ‘freedom.’ ”
That's a great quote — "if ever Fascism should come to America, it will come in the name of 'freedom'" — and I googled it to see if today's anti-freedom leftists had used it against conservatives.
Looking for Mann, I got Ronald Reagan: "If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism."
But it would be a mistake to think Reagan nicked it from Mann and that Mann was the originator of the "if fascism comes to America" clause. In the 1935 Sinclair Lewis book, “It Can’t Happen Here,” there's: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying the cross.”
You get the picture. There's a lot of If fascism ever comes to America, it will look like my opponents.
The "conservative manifesto" referred to in the New Yorker article title is "Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man." That book was recently reissued — here — and Ross is displeased by the new introduction, which he says "trivializes" Mann, putting him at "the level of an op-ed columnist":
".... who refuse to capitulate to Donald Trump. Unfortunately, Fox viewers
rarely get to hear from them. They are booked by the network's producers
so rarely that their contracts could be likened to golden handcuffs.
Now they are ditching the cuffs."
If you're not on any shows, you can make a show out of the spectacle of leaving. And Brian Stelter tries to boost the visibility of this Jonah-and-Stephen-never-capitulate show.
As for "reality-based" — it made me think of Alvy Singer reacting to Duane Hall:
"Well, I have to go now... because I'm due
back on the Planet Earth."
As for "golden handcuffs" — this expression implies that they were paid a lot of money to go on Fox News exclusively, essentially paid to remain silent. But was that the deal? And how much money were they paid? Stelter doesn't say.
It's noble, I suppose, to walk away from money — depending on how much money it was and how ignoble it was to take it in the first place. But we're not told!
Here's the Goldberg + Hayes statement. It doesn't say how much money they got from Fox. Maybe they only walked away from the erstwhile honor of being affiliated with Fox. Now, they judge that association to be detrimental to their stature, and they break it off. If that's the case, there never were any "golden handcuffs," and there's nothing grand about the gesture of walking away.
For generations our primary vision of a dystopian future has been that of Orwell’s 1984. This was a fundamentally “masculine” nightmare of fascist brutality. But with the demise of the Soviet Union and the vanishing memory of the great twentieth-century fascist and communist dictatorships, the nightmare vision of 1984 is slowly fading away. In its place, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is emerging as the more prophetic book. As we unravel the human genome and master the ability to make people happy with televised entertainment and psychoactive drugs, politics is increasingly a vehicle for delivering prepackaged joy. America’s political system used to be about the pursuit of happiness. Now more and more of us want to stop chasing it and have it delivered....
The history of totalitarianism is the history of the quest to transcend the human condition and create a society where our deepest meaning and destiny are realized simply by virtue of the fact that we live in it. It cannot be done, and even if, as often in the case of liberal fascism, the effort is very careful to be humane and decent, it will still result in a kind of benign tyranny where some people get to impose their ideas of goodness and happiness on those who may not share them...
Make people happy with televised entertainment... sounds like the Hallmark channel. So let's read the Amanda Marcotte thing, published jollily on Christmas at Salon:
When most of us think about fascistically propagandistic movies, we think of the grotesque grandeur of Leni Riefenstahl's films celebrating the Third Reich... even in Nazi Germany, the majority of movies approved by the Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, were escapist and feather-light, with a Hallmark movie-style emphasis on the importance of "normality."
There's plenty of reason that empty-headed kitsch fits neatly in the authoritarian worldview. It's storytelling that imitates the gestures of emotion without actually engaging with real feeling... Hallmark movies, with their emphasis on returning home and the pleasures of the small, domestic life, also send a not-at-all subtle signal of disdain for cosmopolitanism and curiosity about the larger world, which is exactly the sort of attitude that helps breed the kind of defensive white nationalism that we see growing in strength in the Donald Trump era.
Both Marcotte and Goldberg are afraid of oppressive government and think cheap televised entertainment is softening the people up to accept it.
"... and since doing background checks is part of its portfolio, having the FBI do a seventh or add an addendum to the sixth background check of Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t seem crazy to me. Lots of people reject all of this and say that the GOP should stop the circus and just vote right now.... But if [Christine Blasey Ford] passes the threshold of sounding believable enough, it seems likely that the only choice will be calling the FBI."
Writes Jonah Goldberg in "Is It Time for the FBI?" (National Review). He puts a link on "super-serious police" and it goes to this September 18th tweet by his National Review colleague Charles C.W. Cooke:
The FBI is not The Super Serious Police. It’s an agency that is tasked with investing alleged violations of federal law, and even then with a limited remit. The Kavanaugh case, whatever the details, does not qualify. Feinstein knows this. Maybe most journalists do not.
Goldberg is citing that not for the stated proposition — "The FBI is not The Super Serious Police" — but for the background premise people believe the FBI is the super-serious police.
Here's Joe Biden to yell at you about what the FBI isn't:
My Democrat friends might want to consider this from then-Judiciary Committee Chairman JOE BIDEN (D-DE) In 1991: The ‘FBI Explicitly Does Not, In This Or Any Other Case Reach A Conclusion, Period’ pic.twitter.com/NvAI3RqevL
I think the FBI has taken a lot of credibility hits lately. There's no good reason to palm off responsibility to them as though they're some sort of oracle of truth. Maybe you think there should be an authority that could be deferred to, but there isn't one, and, in any event, the authority in place in the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee is the U.S. Senate. I know they're awful, partisan, and ridiculous, but it's their job and they need to step up to it and do what they can. And we can judge them as they do their constitutional work, and we've got a constitutional check on them coming right up in 6 weeks. It's only as good as it is, this democracy. But don't give up!
NOTE: This is the third in a series of posts about Kavanaugh this morning. Comments on this post should only be about this article. Here's my post warning you that a series of posts is forthcoming. If you want to draw attention to other articles, do so in the comments section for that post, not this one.
I like the Scott Adams riposte... or do you think it's in bad taste (in the Era of That's Not Funny)?
ADDED: By the way, it's Father's Day. What's with mothers and children? Are no children ripped away from fathers or is that just not visualizable as tragic and traumatic?
I've poured [sic] over these reports. I've scoured the photos. I've looked at every publication and every news outlets reporting. Not. One. Covers. Girls. Being. Detained.
"Opportunism" is "The practice or policy of exploiting circumstances or opportunities to gain immediate advantage, rather than following a predetermined plan; the ability or tendency to exploit circumstances in this way. In later use esp. with the implication of cynicism or lack of regard to principles" (OED).
I understand using whatever you've got, whatever comes your way, when you're trying to defeat a political opponent. And when opportunities arise — like WaPo's "Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32" — they will be exploited for immediate advantage. And there's no plan going forward. You could never get everyone together on a plan for what's acceptable in bringing up allegations about something sexual that happened in private many years ago. How many years ago? How close to the election? Which sexual things? Is kissing and petting a 14-year-old worse than brutally raping a 35-year-old? How do we factor in a failure to report the incident to the police or to bring a civil lawsuit?
Can we at least agree — as an abstract principle — that the standard should be the same for everyone who is accused? Do we not have a foundation of due process — fairness — values? We need to treat Roy Moore the way we would want our favorite politician to be treated, right?
I'm afraid most Americans will say wrong. I think most of us want to look at everything, give everything whatever weight we want, including suspicions like Pizzagate, and let it all roil and seethe throughout our crazy little minds and then go vote. That's democracy. It's not a court of law. And anyway, those judges and jurors in a court of law are only trying (or pretending) to be rational.
Jonah Goldberg says we should just assume WaPo got it right — WaPo, which must want the GOP candidate to lose. He says:
Now, if you honestly think all of the people talking to the Washington Post are lying and that the Post somehow got them all to make this up, you have got one of the biggest stories of the century. If you can prove it, Roy Moore will end up owning the Post after his lawsuit.
Moore knows whether the allegations are true or not. He can withdraw if he knows they're true, but Goldberg says he should withdraw even if he knows the allegations are false, because he can make so much money in a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post.
But Goldberg is only saying that because he thinks Moore is bad in so many other ways and because having to defend Moore will hurt the kind of Republicans he likes.
And Moore can't win that lawsuit, even if he knows the allegations are false. He's a public figure, and WaPo is protected when it publishes false statements, unless the plaintiff can prove that there was reckless disregard for whether it was false. The Washington Post was careful to make that impossible. Goldberg knows that, I think, because he was cagey enough to write that Moore would have to prove that "the Post somehow got them all to make this up." That's a lot to prove! That's the point of the defamation law. The Post is not at risk putting this material out there for people to decide for themselves how to use.
Most people, I suspect, already didn't like Roy Moore and didn't want him in the Senate, but the question is what will Alabama voters do with it. We're talking about people who chose him in the primary over the more normal man named Strange. That's not easy to discern. People are strange.
WALLACE: You also use a phrase which I have to say that I only heard for the first time in the last couple of weeks, "the deep state". And that’s the notion that there’s an Obama shadow government embedded in the bureaucracy that is working against this new president. I think that some folks are going to think that’s right on and some folks will think it’s awfully conspiratorial.
LIMBAUGH: Well, I would love to claim credit for that, but actually, I think a reporter by the name of Glenn Greenwald at "The Intercept" who has got a relationship with -- what’s his name? Assange. I think [Greenwald] actually coined the term.* And I think it works. I don’t think -- who is driving this business that the Russians hacked the election? It’s the Democrat Party. It’s Hillary. It’s Obama. It’s all those people who just can’t accept...
And then later Wallace had WaPo's Charles Lane on a panel discussion:
WALLACE: [The Obama administration in 2009] didn’t get the resistance from the news media. Some would say that -- that it was very compliant and -- and you certainly didn’t get resistance from the -- the deep state, I’m now loving the expression --
I want to include all of Lane's answer just because I thought he said a lot of good things (not because they're on the topic of "deep state"):
LANE: You sure got a lot... of resistance from the problems. But let me make my second point. Of course you’re getting resistance from all these sort of establishment agencies, if you like, because Donald Trump himself came in promising to attack them, promising to disrupt them, promising to take them down. What does he expect them to do, just stand back and let him, you know, destroy their influence and their power? Of course there’s going to be resistance. But, you know, he -- it’s not as if he avoids provocation of these people, particularly the media, as you have been pointing out. He relishes this combat. A lot of what he’s complaining about as resistance and so forth is resistance that he himself is provoking for the very political reasons.... For his base, a battle with the media is wonderful. It’s almost as good as actual policy change because it makes -- it confirms their world view. It confirms their view of what’s wrong with the country and its terrific politics.
State within a state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ ("deep state"), such as the armed forces and civilian authorities (intelligence agencies, police, administrative agencies and branches of governmental bureaucracy), does not respond to the civilian political leadership. Although the state within the state can be conspiratorial in nature, the Deep State can also take the form of entrenched unelected career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial manner, to further their own interests (e.g., job security, enhanced power and authority, pursuit of ideological goals and objectives, and the general growth of their agency) and in opposition to the policies of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting the policies and directives of elected officials. The term, like many in politics, derives from the Greek language (κράτος εν κράτει, kratos en kratei, later adopted into Latin as imperium in imperio or status in statu).
That article has a long list of historical examples, including one for the United States, which goes here. Excerpt:
According to Philip Giraldi, the nexus of power is centered on the military–industrial complex, intelligence community, and Wall Street, while Bill Moyers points to plutocrats and oligarchs. Professor Peter Dale Scott also mentions "big oil" and the media as key players, while David Talbot focuses on national security officials, especially Allen Dulles. Mike Lofgren, an ex-Washington staffer who has written a book on the issue, includes Silicon Valley, along with "key elements of government" and Wall Street....
IN THE COMMENTS: The Godfather said:
I'm concerned that this business of complaining about some "deep state" in the federal government is counterproductive.
I understand the "Yes, Minister" phenomenon, the beaurocracy's protection of its own position and power. I practiced law in Washington DC for almost 50 years, and I saw this all the time. One aspect of it is the glorification of "public service". The lawyer who got a job with a government agency was somehow a "better" person than his private sector counterpart. This is often quite sincere. When I was in law school in New York City, 1965-68, there was a dramatic shift in students' aspirations, no longer to Wall Street, but to Washington. They really wanted to go to the New Frontier and build the Great Society. They -- or more accurately their successors -- didn't sign on to "Make America Great Again". That's going to be a problem for Trump as it was for Reagan and GWBush, Presidents who came into office intending to reduce the size and power of the federal government.
But the problem I have with the term "deep state" (or "dark state" as one commenter referred to it) is the implication that there is a conscious and coherent conspiracy to undermine democratic and constitutional governance. References to the CIA and the Military, etc. seem to lead in that direction. Now I have no doubt that there are "spooks" out there who are willing to play their own games if they can get away with it. Somehow Nixon, who should have known better, allowed them to try to get away with it, and other "spooks" nailed him for doing so. But if there is a conscious and coherent conspiracy of government employees that is trying, in their official positions, to undermine the democratically-elected President, then that ought to be revealed to the public. So far, I haven't seen any evidence that this has happened. But if you think it has, let's have the evidence -- not inference, evidence. There are a lot of lawyers commenting on this blog, and you know what evidence is.
"Yes, huge swaths of political correctness amount to cultural-Marxist codswallop and other forms of leftist bullying. But some of it — just some — does have to do with figuring out how to show people respect. And that is exactly what good manners are all about: showing respect. And as someone who sincerely believes William F. Buckley was the most well-mannered man I’ve ever met, I’d hate to see conservatives defenestrate good manners in their indulgence of populist hysteria."
Jonah Goldberg, of the famously Trump-hating National Review, says that right after denouncing Trump's "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!" Goldberg insults Trump — "almost Caligulan narcissism" — and uses the word "idiots" to refer to anybody who thinks Trump refrained from calling Kelly a bimbo.
Meanwhile, here's a video on political correctness that Trump put up 2 days ago. It's amusingly short because we. don't. have. time:
ADDED: For reference, here's William F. Buckley's "now, listen, you queer" outburst:
IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said: "Bimbo is correct. She dresses up for TV and does a soap opera serious newsbabe act for the women in the audience."
It's a good question: If the woman dolls up like mad, with extremely heavy makeup — and Kelly came to the debate in absurdly thick fake eyelashes — if she uses that to advance her career, are we supposed to maintain respectful silence, because respect must be paid to women?
Last March, I had a post about someone (Mark Belling) calling female reporters "bimbos" and getting criticized for it. My response at the time was:
When I hear "bimbo," I think of "bimbo eruptions," a term coined by Governor Bill Clinton's chief of staff Betsey Ross Wright:
As deputy chair of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, Wright established the rapid response system that was responsible for defending Clinton's record in Arkansas and promptly answering all personal attacks on the candidate. During the 1992 campaign, Wright coined the term "bimbo eruptions" to describe rumors alleging extramarital affairs by Clinton.
And that makes me want to stop and think about whether Trump was playing at the genius level when he floated the term "bimbo" in the Kelly context. Not only did he have his (somewhat ludicrous) out — that he said he wouldn't call Kelly a bimbo — but he also meant to get people talking about the word bimbo — what does it mean? how bad is it? when can it be used? — because he anticipated — several moves ahead in this chess game — that people would arrive at the most notable use of "bimbo" in American politics, "bimbo eruptions," and it's Hillary Clinton who will get hurt the most.
I'm only seeing the updated version, which has this correction: "This story has been updated to clarify to whom Trump directed his comment about the 'guy that can’t buy a pair of pants.'" WaPo's reporter Jose A. DelReal was hot to characterize Trump — under fire for supposedly imitating the disability of Serge Kovaleski — as somebody who's a serial mocker of the disabled. As the report now reads:
This is not the first time Trump has been accused of mocking a person’s physical appearance. In a July interview with NBC news, Trump lashed out at columnists Jonah Goldberg and Charles Krauthammer after the latter called the candidate a "rodeo clown."
“I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names?” Trump said at the time.
Critics speculated that Trump had intentionally mocked Krauthammer, who is paralyzed from the waist down, while others said the comments were about Goldberg. Krauthammer contacted The Washington Post on Thursday to say that Trump's comments were about Goldberg, not himself.
I tried to find the original, but Google cache and Wayback Machine take me to a dead end. What's going on there?
Here's my post from last July "Whose pants is Donald Trump talking about?": "Here's the clip. He's obviously talking about Goldberg, not Krauthammer, when he gets to the pair-of-pants hyperbole." Media jumped on Trump back then and got it wrong. The slavering shows. I think it's a good bet that this new WaPo article successfully propagated the meme that Trump is a serial mocker of disabled people.
ADDED: Here's Washington Monthly's contribution to the meme:
Donald Trump mocked New York Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability on a stage in front of thousands of supporters. There’s no denying that he did it or what he meant by it. At another point, Trump said that conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer, who is partially paralyzed, “couldn’t buy a pair of pants.” That was also captured on camera. So, even if there isn’t as much difference between George W. Bush and Donald Trump as people might think, there’s a lot more ammo to use against Trump.
That, written by one Martin Longman, remains uncorrected. There are lots of comments there too, and no one has flagged the error.
AND: At Mashable, the uncorrected meme is repeated by Liza Hearon:
It is not the first time Trump has been criticized for appearing to mock someone's handicap. In July, Trump said, “I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names?” referring to the columnist Charles Krauthammer who is paralyzed from the waist down.
"By the end of the debate he came across as the drunk, obnoxious uncle everyone wishes hadn’t accepted the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner."
Writes Jonah Goldberg (who goes on to call Jeb the biggest loser politically and to rank the various winners).
I've got to agree about Kasich, whom I think I probably should favor, just on the merits (though not much). He is so annoying.
The truth is, I don't like anyone who's running for President in either party. Watching these debates has become a chore. Following the news. I don't like them. I have no one to root for. And I'm pretty sure Hillary will win in the end. It's quite unpleasant. The worst election season to have to witness since I first started watching... which was in 1960.
"They were taking selfies with the varmints in the background. Some had telephoto lenses and were shooting pictures like they’d stumbled on a bald eagle. I saw a whole family of Italians, three generations of them, gather around as they watched a squirrel eat a nut, or a pizza crust, or maybe it was a used condom. Who knows? Who cares? When did squirrels graduate to exciting wildlife? My dog would be appalled.... Which reminds me, last month, the Goldbergs were at the Copenhagen zoo. They had lions, some really cool vultures, and African wild dogs. They also had a big open-air exhibit of . . . raccoons. North American dumpster-diving raccoons. I thought it was hilarious."
From the depths a Jonah Goldberg column that I'm reading because there's material in it about Suzy Favor Hamilton, the topic of another post this morning. Go here for that. This post is about people who get excited about wildlife you think is utterly mundane and/or a nuisance.
I've been mostly ignoring Donald Trump, but something about the Mediaite headline "Trump Steamrolls NBC Reporter, Takes Shots at Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg" drew me in. Oddly, the post begins with material about how Trump owns a gun, as if the "shots" he was taking at Krauthammer and Goldberg were not merely metaphorical. (Does Trump also own a steamroller?)
And then came Trump’s time to bash all his famous conservative critics.
On Charles Krauthammer, who called him a “rodeo clown”: He’s “a totally overrated person that dislikes me personally. I’ve never met him. He’s a totally overrated guy, doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
On Jonah Goldberg, who compared him to a “failed man”: “I’m worth a fortune. You know, it’s interesting. I went to the best school, got great marks, everything else. I went out, I made a fortune, a big fortune, a tremendous fortune… bigger than people even understand. […] Then I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names?” [Ed. note: Huh? Does anyone know why Trump would think Goldberg can’t buy pants? Send tips to tips@mediaite.com]
That's hilariously loutish, calling Jonah Goldberg "a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants." I googled trump jonah pants to see if Goldberg had responded, and I got to this headline at The Daily Beast: "Trump Teases Critic for Being Paralyzed":
Not content with insulting a female reporter’s intelligence and professionalism, Donald Trump apparently mocked a conservative critic for being paralyzed. Trump in an interview with NBC News was asked about columnist Charles Krauthammer, who is paralyzed from the waist down and has called Trump a “rodeo clown.” In response to criticism from Krauthammer and National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg, Trump said the following: “I went out, I made a fortune, a big fortune, a tremendous fortune… bigger than people even understand,” he said before discussing his plan to release financial statements. “Then I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names?”
Here's the clip. He's obviously talking about Goldberg, not Krauthammer, when he gets to the pair-of-pants hyperbole.
Even if he had used that figure of speech when talking about Krauthammer, he wouldn't have been teasing Krauthammer for being paralyzed. He'd just have stumbled into an unfortunate image. And, look, Krauthammer has responded, and Krauthammer knows it's Jonah whose pants-buying wherewithal was called into question:
"[Trump is] repeating himself. I'm like Jeb on this. I'm done. The man's specialty [is] to suck oxygen, I'm going to be breathing fresh air... And I do want to make an appeal to the viewers out there to crowdsource, to buy Jonah a pair of pants. I think if you look under the table it's disgraceful the way he comes to the show."
The teasing is coming from Krauthammer, and now Jonah has the exquisite distinction of getting fixed in our heads as an icon of panstlessness.
"I am at a loss as to why the show couldn’t revert to that (albeit with a roundtable discussion at the end). It would instantly win viewers from the right if that panel had right-of-center journalists in on the questioning (I have no doubt that one of the main reasons Gregory’s ratings have slumped is that he has zero credibility with right-of-center viewers."
Says Jonah Goldberg, and I guess I might agree but only because I miss Tim so damned much and I don't believe anyone can replace him. But David Gregory is sitting in Tim's seat without seriously trying to do what he did. Gregory is insipidly into his niceness. He doesn't belong there. It's painful. Can Chuck Todd get closer to the Russert ideal? Who knows?
Conservatives have become far too insular, too often rejecting the need to persuade those who don’t already agree with them, arguing instead that ever bloodier doses of red meat will grow the coalition. Liberals have become far too content with the myth of their uniqueness and the pretense that they are brave polymath iconoclasts who know what’s best for you better than you do.
"She will be asked to explain more precisely where she stands on issues of income inequality, economic growth, spending, taxes, entitlements and the trade-offs that will face the next president. Will she be able to be true to the New Democrat ideals that brought her husband to power and also accommodate the energy pulsing through the party’s progressive wing? The answers should begin to come later this year, as she nears a decision about whether to run."
"At some point," Hillary, who hasn't spoken yet, will be asked to say something, something more precise, about all these things that she's refrained from speaking about for so long. At some point? At what point? Eventually there will be a point, and when it comes, what difference at this point does it make?
It's a style: Wait long enough and you can say the time has passed for addressing this problem. That's a conservative strategy by the way.
When you see ten troubles rolling down the road, if you don’t do anything, nine of them will roll into the ditch before they get to you.
The energy pulsing through the party’s progressive wing won't pulse forever. And when that throbbing tumescence abates, the calm steady woman will be there as ever, waiting for us all to acknowledge her rightful status as President of the United States.
IN THE COMMENTS: Tom Gallagher said: "Doesn't she need to write a book or two before running for president?" And I had to think: Has Hillary ever written a book?
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