1) From the Politico, “Ted Stevens indicted on 7 Counts” by Martin Kady II and John Bresnahan As they say up in Alaska, oy gevalt. At least that’s what they say up there in a Michael Chabon novel. Anyway, the Republican party has a new poster boy for the 2008 election. He’s an 84 year-old whose alleged turn-ons include accepting petty gifts without disclosing them. You know what really grates about this scandal? The almost absurd pettiness. Ted Stevens allegedly compromised his country, his high office and his party for $250,000 worth of “things of value” including a Viking stove. Viking stoves are nice, but when a big-thinker like LBJ used his office for personal gain, he walked away from the dealings a rich man. Over at the Daily Kos, they are of course hanging the metaphorical bunting to greet this news. The fact that Stevens is up for reelection does not diminish their joy. Or does it? Kos rightly points out that Stevens was an endangered incumbent to begin with. Assuming Stevens does the right thing and falls on his sword (or puts his head in his Viking range to use a more appropriate metaphor) any time up to 48 days before his election, the Republicans can replace him on the ballot. And of course, he hasn’t won the nomination yet. Long story short? Sarah Palin looks good anywhere she goes, but she would look especially good in the United States Senate. 2) From the Washington Post, “Known Unknowns About Obama” by Richard Cohen Cohen has belatedly discovered that Barack Obama is a man of few accomplishments. One wonders how Cohen finally arrived at this breathtaking conclusion. Has he been attending remedial pundits’ school? Here’s the introduction:
Nice. Now here’s a middle passage:
You can see the column went downhill rather sharply. Anyway, let’s play Cohen’s game and “compare” Candidate Obama to Candidate FDR in regards to actual accomplishments, the intellectual software that Cohen trotted out at the start of the column. I must have missed the four years when Obama served as governor of the country’s most populous state. Or the time when Obama served as a wartime Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Even more importantly, what has Obama done that shows the character FDR displayed in overcoming his polio-induced paralysis? Yup, Cohen nails it – Obama and FDR are practically two peas in a pod. I single out the FDR comparison because Cohen is to my knowledge the first columnist sufficiently obtuse to draw such a parallel. Cohen is on much safer albeit more clichéd grounds when he likens Obama to JFK. But if you challenged someone in 1960 to name one thing that JFK had done that was worthy of admiration, you’d get an answer. His war heroics might have come up. Or his distinguished 12 years in congress. Or the Pulitzer Prize winning book that he sort of wrote. (Okay, he only commissioned it, but that’s the next best thing.) And yet Cohen wants us to take the FDR and JFK comparisons seriously enough so he can conclude with this inscrutable passage:
Take it from one who knows – that last paragraph is an example of brilliant polemicizing. Any time you leave the reader scratching his head and grunting “Huh?” you’ve done your job well. 3) From the Captain’s Journal, “The Surge” by Herschel Smith As you know, the left’s latest talking point is the Surge was indeed wonderful, but all the good stuff that’s happened in Iraq since the Surge basically would have happened anyway. Twisting themselves into this intellectual pretzel is the only way the left can simultaneously minimize the surge in Iraq while insisting on the necessity of a surge in Afghanistan. Among those peddling this risibly counterfactual rubbish is Barack Obama advisor Professor Colin Kahl who has written, “In short, contrary to the Bush administration’s claims, the Awakening began before the surge and was driven in part by Democratic pressure to withdraw.” Democratic pressure – is there anything it can’t do? Too bad our Democrats in congress won’t put some of their vaunted pressure on gas prices, no? I strongly encourage you to read Herschel Smith’s wonderful takedown of this latest Democratic fad. 4) From the New York Post, “O’s Tour De Farce” by Amir Taheri Please also note the wonderful subtitle: “Photo ops and Fecklessness.” Taheri doesn’t break any new ground with this piece, but he does return the focus to where it should be – Barack Obama’s almost stunning indifference to winning in Iraq:
Okay, that view suggests not just indifference to winning, but actual hostility to victory. When John McCain said last week that Obama preferred losing a war in order to win a campaign, the phony outrage industry went into overdrive. “Scurrilous!” bellowed Joe Klein and other similarly scandalized media bigfoots. In retrospect, I would label McCain’s comments not scurrilous but misguided. By attacking Obama’s good faith, McCain ventured into the realm of the unsupportable. Better to have remained (and now to return) to what can be proven – Barack Obama is sufficiently indifferent to victory in Iraq that he’s not willing to bear any burden in order to prevail there. If Obama wants to argue that Iraq is unimportant and America should turn its back on the victory we are now almost able to claim, let’s have that argument. More likely, Obama will argue that his plan – full and rapid retreat – is actually a plan for victory. Assuming he makes that case, the McCain people can still get him on the hypothetical level. As we’ve seen, savvy media commentators like Richard Cohen often liken Obama to John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was perhaps best known for not only promising to “bear any burden” for freedom, but walking the walk as well. Asking Barack Obama what burdens he would bear in order to win in Iraq will eventually evidence a curt answer that lies beneath all the soaring rhetoric – none. 5) From the Wall Street Journal, “Thx for the IView! I Wud ♥ to Work 4 U!! ;)” by Sarah Needleman The kids aren’t alright. As the Wall Street Journal reports, they can be a bunch of dolts. Many young-ish job seekers have substituted overly familiar text messaging for the traditional thank you notes people used to send after a job interview. The interviewers have not been amused. Looking for a job is a lot like running for office – you have to shore up your weaknesses. If you’re a young person, maturity is going to be the big issue that potential employers are going to be wary of. Thus, a young person on the job prowl will want to dress himself or herself in traditional garb for the interview and avoid any overly youthful references like talking about the great Rave he attended last weekend. In politics, it’s the same way. If you have an office-seeker who has a thin résumé, he can’t ever risk coming across like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Hence Barack Obama’s refusal to admit error even when he obviously blew it like he did on the surge. Come on kids – be more like Obama!
