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Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
Monica Crowley compares Hillary Rodham Clinton to Glenn Close's character at the end of Fatal Attraction:

"You think she's dead and then she sits bolt-upright in the bathtub!"
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
On March 18, 2008, to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, activists staged a variety of protests, marches, and "direct actions" around that malodorous refuse pile known as San Francisco. Once again, the intrepid Zombie was there with his camera to capture the spirit of the psycho, moon-bat, anti-war movement.

So find a comfortable chair, pour a refreshing drink, and browse leisurely through this stunning array of images.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
Victor Davis Hanson is not mincing words:

"Barack Obama’s Tuesday sermon was a well-crafted, well-delivered, postmodern review of race that had little to do with the poor judgment revealed in Obama’s relationship with the hateful Rev. Wright, much less the damage that he does both to African Americans and to the country in general."

Hanson goes on to say: "Rather than account for his relationship with a hate-monger, Obama will enlighten you, as your teacher, why you are either confused or too ill-intended to ask him to disassociate himself from Wright."

Read Hanson's blistering breakdown of Obama's speech here.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
National Review has assembled a symposium of critiques and responses to today's speech by Barack Obama. The symposium's participants share the assesment that Obama came up short today. Perhaps the most hard-hitting evaluation comes from Alvin S. Felzenberg:

Today we may have witnessed the beginning of the end of Barack Obama’s once-stunning campaign for the presidency. Not for the first time, the Illinois senator demonstrated, for all to see, that he is not qualified to serve as the nation’s president — at least, to paraphrase Mr. Obama, “not this time.”

See the full assesment here.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
This morning at RealClearPolitics John McIntyre writes a provocative but reasonable piece that suggests that one should (in Wall Street terms) "buy Hillary" (he should have written "go long Hillary and short Obama."). He writes:

The mostly unnoticed switch of Puerto Rico from a caucus on June 7 to a primary on June 1, gives Hillary Clinton a very real opportunity to surpass Barack Obama in the popular vote count. If Senator Clinton can "win" the popular vote, this will provide undecided superdelegates ample rationale to go with the less risky general election option of Senator Clinton.

If that is correct, that is important. Having a slight but indecisive delegate lead becomes a mere argument if the opponent has a lead in the popular vote, which becomes simply another argument -- but, when the issue is clouded, the one with the ostentatiously racist minister has a distinct disadvantage in the argument.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold, but you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for closers.

David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross remains one of the greatest triumphs of the American stage. A theatrical success, the play was later immortalized on the big screen in 1992. The film showcased outstanding performances by some of the greatest actors of their generation: Al Pacino (as Ricky Roma), Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon (as Shelley "The Machine" Levene), Alan Arka, and Jonathan Pryce. But perhaps the most memorable performance was offered by Alec Baldwin, whose character travels "from Downtown" to the regional sales office of Mitch & Murray on a "mission of mercy" to announce a new sales contest:

We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? [Holds up prize] Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is . . . you're fired.

If you have never seen it, you can watch this unforgettable scene here.

David Mamet, the genius behind these words, spent most of his life immersed in the trendy subculture of "the Arts." By default, he took the liberal view of politics, of life, and of human nature for many decades. But he has recently recanted:

"As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart. These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong."

"But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part."

"And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama."

Mamet also has some very sensible things to say about the Constitution, which "rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests."

I can't wait to see how his new-found philosophy influences his future work.

Welcome home, David Mamet.

Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
First Things remains one of my favorite journals of scholarship and opinion. I have been a subscriber for the past 12 years. To my delight, the latest issue highlights the intersection of two points of interest to readers of this Blog: Religious Faith and the Presidency.

Was the Sage of Monticello an avowed agnostic? Was he a full-fledged Deist? Or were his religious views much more nuanced and complex than we have been led to believe? Steven Waldman argues that our 3rd President was on a personal spiritual journey that took him outside the mainstream.

Also, Andrew Ferguson scrutinizes the endless attempts of historians and politicians to claim Lincoln for some spiritual or religious cause. But, as Ferguson insists, "We will never know for sure whether Lincoln held orthodox Christian beliefs, whether he believed in the Trinity, the divinity of Christ or his resurrection, the life everlasting, the forgiveness of sins, the inerrant word of God as revealed in the Old Testament or the New."
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
One of my favorite blogs, Southern Appeal, is back up and running.