“It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows,” writes National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger. To properly push back at the media, entertainment and educational forces that promote such views, he concludes, the conservative “counterestablishment needs to be tended, and beefed up.”
Speaking of Jon Stewart. . . . At his final press conference, President Bush cited as “disappointments” being wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib abuses. “No, these are not disappointments,” Stewart argued on “The Daily Show.” “When the prize under your Diet Coke cap is a coupon for more Diet Coke, that is a disappointment. X-ray specs are a disappointment.”
“There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation,” wrote journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. “This is a false and dangerous notion. It is true that Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief.
“The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.
“The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and mainly Israel must help Hamas’ enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative.”
Allegations against a Wichita attorney reflect how the Bush administration put ideology above competence and even the law. According to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Bradley Schlozman, a former top department official now living in Wichita, violated federal law by considering politics and ideology as factors in hiring and transferring career attorneys. This is especially galling given that Schlozman’s job was to enforce federal laws prohibiting discrimination. But according to the inspector general, he unlawfully discriminated against qualified job applicants – and then lied to Congress about it.
“The quick way to fill a hole is across the board,” House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, said in dismissing Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ strategic spending cuts in her 2009 and 2010 budget proposals. But surely Kansans would have their lawmakers exercise judgment rather than take a hacksaw to state government. Speaking of saws, here’s an old one: Better to do something right than to do it fast and badly.
“It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows,” writes National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger. To properly push back at the media, entertainment and educational forces that promote such views, he concludes, the conservative “counterestablishment needs to be tended, and beefed up.”
