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Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble
Lots going on, today, despite it being a holiday. Let’s get to it.
- It’s about time you did this, [2]Mr. President. Only one thing I want to know… why the delay?
- Fred Dicker [3]is reporting that Caroline Kennedy is the odds on fave for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, according to what he’s hearing. OK, Rumor mill and all that, but still… Dicker is usually reliable in the extreme, and Patterson strikes me as just dumb enough, and enough of a party loylaist to make such a singularly stupid appointment, so I’m inclined to take this report at face value. Do the Democrats really think there’s not going to be a negative reaction at the polls in a couple years? I think they’ll be suprised.
- This has to be the longest Glenn Reynolds post [4] I’ve seen in a year. He usually does this around the point in time I’ve figured he lost the ability for longer form commentary. Now if only he could get one correct. I think Jonah’s right, this time.
- If Rachel Maddow is telling the truth, here… [5](A stretch, in my vew, at best) then there’s but one conclusion to draw; She’s spending an awful lot of time complaining about something she knows little or nothing about. Gee… someone at MSNBC venting at length on something they know nothing about. Who’d have thought it?
- I also think Len Pitts has [6]another topic covered;
How do you reconcile that with all those cartoons of Lincoln congratulating Obama? You don’t. You simply recognize it for what it is: yet another illustration of how shallow our comprehension of history is, yet another instance where myth supersedes reality.Not that this is anything new — or that political cartoonists are the only ones susceptible. Indeed, African Americans once tended to regard Lincoln with an almost religious reverence. Consider another Lincoln statue, this one in a park east of the Capitol: It depicts Lincoln towering over a newly freed black man who kneels at his feet. While modern eyes might find the image unbearably paternalistic, it represented the heartfelt sentiment of the black men and women who gave it to the city in 1876 in gratitude, they said, for Lincoln freeing the slaves.
Of course, Lincoln freed no slaves. That’s the myth. His Emancipation Proclamation was a military measure to demoralize and destabilize the rebellious South; it covered states he did not govern but did not apply in slaveholding states that remained under his jurisdiction.
None of which is to deny or diminish the greatness of the 16th president
I’d even take that a step farther… and I may do an extended write up on the topic; Leaving Lincoln agreeably aside, I’m not convinced Martin Luther King would have been very happy about Obama, either, the repeated invocation of both their names notwithstanding. How could someone whose stated dream involved “being judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” have supported Obama whose skin color was clearly the biggest factor in his assention to the throne election?
- I see Obama’s buddy, Bill Ayers got turned away at the Canadian border [7]last night. Says he has no idea why he got turned away. Liar.
- $150 million for the party tomorrow? No big deal, particularly given the amount of money we’re already tossing around. But I’m still annoyed. Remember, gang, this is the crew that bitched up a blue streak about Bush spending a comparatively anemic $50 million four years ago. Oh.. and ignore the claims that Obama’s money for this all comes form Priavte sources. Who is paying for the added security? Who is paying for the record number of porta-potty deployments? How many of the supposedly private donations are from companies… banks, for example, that the government just bailed out? [8] Trust me; there’s a pile of tax money involved. I’d venture to say, most of it. That they can’t at least be honest about that, is a serious issue. The level of hypocracy surrounding complaints about Bush’s $50musd and the silence about Obama spending at least three times that much, added to it, makes the whole thing simply staggering. If this is an indication of the kind of time we’re going to have with Obama and company, we’re in serious trouble.
- Speaking of that, I don’t wanna hear about how we’re in such trouble with the economy, anymore, and how we’ve all got to make sacrifices, from a guy who just spent enough money on his coronation that directed at his native Kenya, (Yes, I still think so) would feed the entire population for several weeks. I don’t want to hear congress critters complaining about CEO pay going up while the companies themselves are in trouble, when the Democrat Congress keeps voting itself raises.
- I grow weary with people telling me I’ve ‘got it in for Obama’. Does anyone happen to remember the nonsense the right has had to put up with for eight long years? Bad enough that the guy we were defending wasn’t really very conservative, but the foamers brought the science of the political attack to levels not seen since Hitler or Stalin.(Perhaps why crazy Uncle Hugo is so loud [9]
[10]on the subject?) Deb Saunders in the San Fran Chron [11] today apparently sees this fairly clearly:
From the day President Bush took office, the long knives were out for him – in ways they will not (and should not) be out for President-elect Barack Obama. The chattering class saw Dubya as a walking style crime in a cowboy suit. They hit Bush for everything – for the way he mangled syntax, for the books he read, because he worked out too muchNote now that the buff Obama is taking office, stories gushing about Obama’s daily workouts flood the channels. Oh, yes, and the same people who belittled Bush for sending troops to war even though he only served in the National Guard somehow do not seem to notice Obama’s utter lack of military experience.
To trash Bush was to belong. There was little upside in supporting Bush, even if you had supported his agenda.
Most of the Democratic candidates for president in 2004 and 2008 voted for the Patriot Act – and then campaigned against it. They voted for the resolution authorizing U.S. military force in Iraq – then bolted from the war itself. Likewise with No Child Left Behind. Somehow Bush was the guy who looked bad as he withstood the heat, while his caving critics preened.
I think Deb’s hit on a central point, here. I may dive into that in long form as time and inspiration allow, but for now, consider this a reminder, Obama supporters, of what Bush and his people have put up with from you. Your complaints about current attacks on Obama have no legs whatever, thereby.
- Good news from the AFC game last night; Former Bill and current RB Willis McGahee isn’t all that badly off [12], as we thought he might have been last night.