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LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 6, 2009
Now that's how a conservative should dress!
Right Wing News blog’s John Hawkins went through a year of Huffington Post swill to distill “The 10 Worst Quotes From The Huffington Post For 2008” — so we don’t have to.
UPDATE: It gets even worser! A lot worser!!
Posted in Blogophilia, Politics and Poker, Sisyphus | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 6, 2009
It’s pathetic all ’round to see a fellow like Roland Burris, who by indications appears to be a gentleman at the very least (or perhaps at most), reduced to this:
Democrats and Obama have said that the corruption charges against Blagojevich would strip credibility from anyone he appoints to the seat. Burris and many of his supporters have suggested that the real reason for the rejection involved race.
Blagojevich denies federal accusations that he tried to sell Obama’s seat. Democrats, for their part, deny that race has anything to do with Burris’ rejection and say that it’s a reflection on Blagojevich.
Did Burris really make such a stupid — outrageous, really — “suggestion”? That characterization doesn’t seem consistent with this quote later in the article:
Burris himself downplayed the issue of race, telling reporters: “I cannot control my supporters. I have never in my life, in all my years of being elected to office, thought anything about race.”
Well, that makes one of him. His claim of color-free thinking through a long lifetime in Chicago politics is hard to credit. As I edit this I see Glenn Reynolds thnking the same thing: “He lies well enough to be a member of the Senate, anyway!” Burris is what he is.
Not having to say you're sorry
But more specifically, there’s no question that the cynical crook who appointed him (and, really, there does not seem to be any bona fide legal ground on which to challenge that appointment) thought that selecting a black politician would be the very least he could do to insulate the appointment from attack.
It didn’t work, and it’s a shame for Burris, though it seems likely that but for the scandal that he would not have been the appointee. But the multifaceted irony of the Senate’s Democratic majority being unfairly accused of racism when all it is really guilty of is crass political posturing… that may make it worth the price of admission. So to speak.
Posted in Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 31, 2008
“President Reid?” I know it’s just a verbal stumble, but don’t scare me like that.
Come Glenn, we must face our fears!
Posted in Jocularity, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 21, 2008
The real question, given the way the press covered for John Edwards, Barack Obama, et al. is whether the press would cover a Watergate if it happened under a Democratic administration.
They would. Have we forgotten Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? The Clintons felt from almost Day One that the press was their bitter enemy, but with Monicagate the dogs were loosed. While overall, cultural elites swooned over Clinton — churning out several thinly-disguised valentines in Hollywood, naming him (how embarrassing now!) our First Black President, and of course running down the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy when the time came for that — “the press,” which we now call the mainstream press , went in for the kill once their cheese was moved by Matt Drudge.
Media on media on media
It’s not a paradox. The MSM will never forgive a Republican for being elected to audience, and will pull out the stops to do everything they can to insure that it doesn’t happen again. Democrats do get a honeymoon, and no matter how badly received their efforts are they will always receive, for example, the endorsement of the New York Times — as bad as they are, after all, they’re not Republicans.
But within that limiting principle, their ambition, especially when Election Day is close by in the rear view mirror, overrides their loyalty to the individual. After all, if you bring down Bill Clinton, what do you get? A Pulitzer, editorial tenure for life, book contracts and hefty speaking fees — and, hey, President Al Gore.
What’s not to like?
Posted in Medialites, Politics and Poker | 4 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 18, 2008
Here’s a map in case you need help visualizing “the area” Caroline needs to win over as she ventures off Manhattan Island:
Northern Territory
Actually I here she’s very big in Schenectady.
Posted in Politics and Poker | 5 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 15, 2008
Which were the objectionable means you have in mind, Rhoads? Humor me.
I knew it that this was the basis — along with taking causalities — for Democrats to decide whether or not they supported the war when it was going badly, but not whether it was legal in the first place.
There is a vast degree of opinion regarding the war’s legality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War
As a general rule almost every opinion on the matter promulgated by an institution, person or other entity came to a conclusion that could be predicted based on that source’s political inclinations regarding the matter.
That doesn’t mean you’re wrong or that it doesn’t matter. It means the question is more complex than you suggest.
Brian, you are mistaking political sloganeering for reality.
I only wish these serious issues were political sloganeering rather than reality …
But back to the point of your original post, history will be the judge of who is correct. Until then, we’ll each live in the reality of our own choosing.
Posted in Oppression, Orient, Past is prologue, Politics and Poker, Stragety | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 10, 2008
I did! I did taw a putty tat!
BLAGOJEVICH: “Vengeful and Profane.” Doesn’t sound like he’s going to get much support from the media, or fellow Democratic politicians.
Oh, but what “help” might he provide?
My first inclination was to think that perhaps we have here a new James Traficant! Defiant and all. But then I thought better of it, for if Mr. Fitzgerald the prosecutor has even half of what he claims he’s got on Blagojevich, the Illinois governor is very dead meat — but has far, far more to sell than Traficant ever did.
It seems likely that Blagojevich knows, well… everything about the seedy underside of Illinois politics. Everything.
Did that link say “vengeful”? This could be a very, very warm winter on the shores of Lake Michigan!
Posted in Lex scripta, Oppression, Politics and Poker | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 7, 2008
The Freeholder argues that conservatives have been wrong to spurn Obama’s message of hope:
When voters in Louisiana, arguably one of the most corrupt states in the union, can vote out a Congressman caught with a freezer full of bribe money, there is hope.
And it only took, what? Three years?
They move real slow down theya, ya know son.
Posted in Americana, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 6, 2008
It’s a brave new world, and their favorite son is not even in office yet:
Which side are you on?
Workers who got three days’ notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won’t go home without assurances they’ll get severance and vacation pay.
About 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind. . . .
“We’re doing something we haven’t done since the 1930s, so we’re trying to make it work,” she said, referring to a tactic most famously used in 1936-37 by General Motors factory workers in Flint, Mich., to help unionize the U.S. auto industry.
Of course in ’36-’37, the country was actually beginning to recover from the double whammy of the Depression and the New Deal policies that deepened it. The unionization of the auto industry probably didn’t help much, but with war in Europe brewing orders were picking up. A year or two later, and the real shooting under way, factory orders were up enough that unionization seemed to work wonders for the economy!
Here in 2008, however, we’re almost certainly not at bottom yet, by a long shot, and no obvious new war is on the horizon, so the timing for union-orchestrated violence — and that is what this is — would appear less than brilliant.
So what is the thinking in the People’s Republic of Illinois? Is organized labor so close to back in the driver’s seat, and the Big Three bailout so close to fruition after all, that a fantasy-based-union-bounty-based economy is upon us? Is it that the era of President-Elect Obama means that Chicago is totally up for leftist power grabs? A little of both? Or was I wrong about the whole “here comes socialism” piece altogether, in a way that — let’s face it — none of us had guessed?
Posted in Gelt, Oppression, Past is prologue, Politics and Poker, Stragety | 12 Comments »
Can you guess who said it? No peeking!