Moe Lane

With regard to this despairing statement by David Brooks:

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

…I do not say that Jen Rubin is sharpening her knife.

Maybe the rubes understand Obama fairly well, after all. They figured out quite some time ago that the entire campaign message — change, hope, post-partisanship, nonideological, fiscally sober — was a ruse. And they understand how immoderate both his methods and his aims are.

I personally am not out on a ledge. (But then I never bought the whole Obama campaign whoop-de-do.) Should this pass, I have infinite faith that the American people will deliver a mortal electoral blow to those politicians who thought they could shred anything to get their way. And then bit by bit — or in one fell swoop — the elected replacements for the shredders will rip out ObamaCare. So there’s no reason to be morose. Elections are great corrective exercises, and one is just around the corner.

That would imply that Jen would have been foolish enough to let the knife get dull in the first place.  She’s not the sort; and neither am I.  I still think that this bill will not pass – but at this point, we’ve got a fallback strategy in place, just in case.  And should quote-unquote ‘moderate’ Democrats really do decide to commit electoral suicide for the sake of their liberal leadership, I guess that we can accommodate them.

And relax about worrying about how we could possibly gut this next year.  The Democrats are doing us the favor of setting the procedural bar very, very, very low…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

…when he asked:

Why is being appalled by Hanks’s infantile philosophizing a “right-wing” or “conservative” reaction? Would not liberals as well be angry that in blanket fashion, Hanks had reduced veterans’ efforts in the Pacific after the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor (and to be followed by a magnanimous peace that fostered autonomous Japanese democracy) into largely a racist rage to annihilate?

(Background here.)

The answer, of course, is that mainstream conservatives do not generally allow people in their coalition to make puerile moral equivalency arguments like Tom Hanks’ without an immediate (and usually angry) challenge in reply; while mainstream liberals… do.

I’m truly sorry to have to write that, but it’s not my fault that the Democrats have ceded the battlespace on American exceptionalism in order to maintain a ever-more-fragile voting majority.

Moe Lane

Jim Geraghty:

The headline in Haaretz is “Netanyahu’s brother-in-law: Obama is an anti-Semite” but the story actually quotes him as saying Obama is “anti-Israel.” I don’t think the terms are quite the same, although the middle portion of that venn diagram is pretty big.

R.S. McCain:

This is why the “peace process” can never lead to peace: The PLA, Fatah and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades don’t want peace, they want dead Jews.

I would very much like not to have to jog the administration’s elbow on this issue, but they’re making a mistake both foreign and domestic with regard to our new Israeli policy.  The ‘foreign’ part is covered above: for ‘domestic,’ see Walter Russell Mead.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

What the hell: it’s practically traditional by now. Real Irish music:

Death Valley Queen, Flogging Molly

Kinda.

Although I could have just as easily picked Toy Story 2 as I did Toy Story: the former was one of those rare sequels that holds up well to the original. Let’s hope that continues.

And so, adieu to District 9.

True, you can get more details from the body of the article, but do you really need them?

“Two suspects were killed after one dressed as a leprechaun and robbed a Gallatin Bank Wednesday afternoon.”

As it stands, it already tells you everything important about what must have turned out to be a very surreal, very Bad Day for at least a half dozen people.  Except for the explicit itemization of the poor life choices involved, but you can probably work them out for yourself.

Thanks to Reader Joseph.

Here, I’ll even put up some Irish music.

NOW SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

Moe Lane

PS: 15/16ths, thank you very much.

A group’s got to know its limitations.

You may have noticed that a lot of the people being most virulent about Erick’s CNN gig are folks who don’t have, won’t have, and probably can’t have CNN gigs, or anything like that (the highest that they aspire to is to get on Maddow once) and it’s not unreasonable to assume that this probably bugs them. They’re in the Left-sphere, remember? Beyond a certain point, there’s no advancement; the activist Left have all the tame blogs that they need, thanks, and they’d prefer to develop the ones that they have than let new ones be created.

But if you’re in that position you don’t want to think about it, I suppose. I certainly wouldn’t, if I was in their shoes*. So they’ve told themselves that it’s because they’re too edgy for the MSM. Too in-your-face. It’s the price that they pay for keeping it real with their rough language and uncompromising style. So it’s OK, really; they can’t be blamed for being too hardcore for television. So when Erick gets a CNN gig, after calling David Souter a goat-f*cking child molester? Well, they can start screaming about the situation, or they can dispassionately admit to themselves that the real reason why they’re not on TV is because they suck.

You tell me which is a more attractive option to these people.

Moe Lane

PS: Jim Geraghty was thinking along the same lines. Which you’d already know, if only you subscribed to his Morning Jolt… (more…)

Is what you are doing today going to be as cool as this?

Hey, don’t feel bad.  I don’t have anything as cool as this scheduled for today, either.

(Via AoSHQ Headlines)

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Look in your heart; you will know this to be true.

The Muppet Wicker Man Comic. Based on the original, not the recent one that I didn’t even bother to watch*.

But beware: some things may not be unseen, once they are seen.

Moe Lane

PS: I will be merciful and not tell you from whom I got this.  Just this once.

*I might have, if I could have come up with a good reason for why there should have been a remake in the first place.

Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. - I don’t got ‘em, and haven’t for, wow, has it been six years now? Time flies.

Since I’ve Been Loving You, Led Zeppelin