Todd Zywicki has a post “Intelligence versus Glibness”. It rehashes arguments we sometimes discuss here (sufficiently that we probably don’t need to start again, though Shannon is often quite interesting when he discourses on the articulate in empty suits). Still if any of our readers long to analyze Palin’s sentences, they can take themselves to the sanctuary of Volokh’s comments. (It was inspired by Randall Hooven’s American Thinker essay, “Judging who’s Smart.”)
Elections
The Longing for a Messiah
Update: If the links below the jump haven’t sufficiently creeped you out, here’s another example a friend sent: the Obama Votive candle.
Teaching eighteenth and nineteenth century writers, I wonder about the “Awakenings” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Looking back, we see the passion they generated. Edwards says in a letter that
This town never was so full of love, nor so full of joy, nor so full of distress as it has lately been. Some persons have had those longing desires after Jesus Christ, that have been to that degree as to take away their strength and very much to weaken them, and make them faint. Many have been overcome with a sense of the dying love of Christ, so that the home of the body has been ready to fail under it.
Obamian Acolytes vs Joe the Plumber
Ever since Joe Wurzelbacher had his interchange with Barack Obama, “progressive” websites and left-leaning media have been working to discredit Joe and harm him. Indeed, much of the media has shown more interest in investigating Joe than they ever showed in investigating Senator Obama or asking him tough questions. The Anchoress has a summary and round-up of links; see also Hot Air and the thoughtful post at Bookworm Room.
The message is pretty clear: If you dare to challenge a candidate beloved by the “progressive” movement, they will do everything they can to destroy you. You’d better be careful that all aspects of your life are squeaky clean and that your family can stand abuse: otherwise, just keep your mouth shut and don’t challenge those who know better than you. Mess with Obama, and you’ll never plumb in this town again.
John McCain:
Last weekend, Senator Obama showed up in Joe’s driveway to ask for his vote, and Joe asked Senator Obama a tough question. I’m glad he did; I think Senator Obama could use a few more tough questions.
The response from Senator Obama and his campaign yesterday was to attack Joe. People are digging through his personal life and he has TV crews camped out in front of his house. He didn’t ask for Senator Obama to come to his house. He wasn’t recruited or prompted by our campaign. He just asked a question. And Americans ought to be able to ask Senator Obama tough questions without being smeared and targeted with political attacks.
Neptunus Lex quotes the old Japanese saying: “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Today’s “progressives” want very much to hammer down nails in America.
Here’s what I think is going on: Over the last 20 years, too many of America’s universities have become places in which conformity is at a premium and genuinely independent thought is discouraged–“islands of repression in a sea of freedom,” as someone put it. It was inevitable that the spririt of repression inculculated in the universities would begin to poison the larger society, and that is now happening.
Here’s an item which I think is related: It’s been reported that at a (rare, small) McCain rally in NYC, somebody grabbed a McCain sign and beat up the woman carrying it. Beat her up physically, not metaphorically.
We seem to have a substantial population of “progressives” who simply cannot abide the idea that anyone would disagree with their policies and/or principles, and these people are, increasingly, a primary constituency–maybe the primary constituency–of the Democratic party. What would happen to free speech in a country with a Democratic administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress and (after a lapse of time) a court system dominated by Democratic appointees? I don’t want to be alarmist, but I think there’s something to be concerned about here.
More on Joe the Plumber from Neo, who has video and sees a rather “sneering and condescending” attitude on Obama’s part. “Sneering” might be a little too strong, but “snide and condescending” would IMNSHO be appropriate.
Snideness and smears should not be a recipe for electoral success in this country.
(some of the above links via Instapundit)
Update: See If the jackboot fits from Iowahawk; also Villagers with Torches.
Bits to Remind Us – The Election Nears
1) I, for one, am glad Americans fit my assumptions better than those of snarky reporters: that’s the subtext of the Great Aggregator’s aggregation. And we wonder yet again at the power of transference.
Obama, the Democrats, and Israel
Speaking in France, Jesse Jackson expanded on the ways in which American foreign policy will change in an Obama administration:
Prepare for a new America: That’s the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.
He promised “fundamental changes” in US foreign policy – saying America must “heal wounds” it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the “arrogance of the Bush administration.”
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where “decades of putting Israel’s interests first” would end.
Jackson believes that, although “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.
While predicting that the Obama administration will implement drastic changes in domestic policy as well, Jackson declined to be specific about what might be done. He was more willing to be concrete with regard to foreign policy, specifically the Middle East:
Jackson is especially critical of President Bush’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss,” Jackson says. “Barack will change that,” because, as long as the Palestinians haven’t seen justice, the Middle East will “remain a source of danger to us all.”
More at Power Line.
Jackson doesn’t have authority to speak for Obama, of course. But the attitudes he expresses here are disturbingly common in the higher reaches of the Democratic Party.
Anyone who cares about the survival and well-being of Israel needs to consider very carefully before voting for any Democratic candidate. Because American diplomatic and military support for Israel has a clear inverse relationship with the power and influence of the Democratic Party as it stands today.
And Israel’s safety is something all Americans should care about, for the same reasons Europeans and Americans should have been concerned about the safety of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
UPDATE: See this analysis, which was published yesterday in the Israeli internet publication ynet.