Quote of the Day

This made me snort:

Hanson glibly mentions former segregationist Republican Strom Thurmond's "wandering hands," which is a euphemism for "former white supremacist who fathered a black child out of wedlock and managed to keep it a secret until after his death."

That's Adam Serwer over at Mother Jones dismantling Victor Davis Hanson's screed about, inter way-too-much alia, how much it sucks to be Herman Cain. I think Adam may be a bit hard on Hanson for this quote, cuz I mean, "wandering hands" really is so much more economical for word count...

...and for glossing over what wretched human beings Thurmond and his ilk really were.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Quote of the Day

"They also noted that he has won awards for his police work and his effort to get guns off the street."

Attorneys discussing their client, Jerome Finnegan--the disgraced cop at center of robbery and kidnapping ring-- who was sentenced to 12 years for murder-for-hire plot to kill cop he thought was aiding the investigation into his aforementioned robbery and kidnapping ring.  Chicago Tribune 

Quote of the Day: Post-Racial America

"I was talking with some of the parents from leo high school, and the general consensus is that the busing of the harding students to our school is going to create a mass exodus of wealthy famillies from the area, as... well as many of us pulling our children out of the school and sending them to cantebury [prep school] and bishop luers [one of two local Catholic high schools], also auburn schools came up in the conversation. the long term effect of this will be the selling of homes to move to better school districts. It really sucks that i just paid $400,000 for a house in the best school district in northern indiana, only to have a bunch of saggy pant snoop dog wanna be's trucked into my neighborhood like cattle." (emphasis mine)

- A blog comment, supposedly from a Leo High School parent, discussing the closure of my poor, mostly black high school alma mater and the forced busing of its students to the rest of the mostly white district and specifically to Leo, the (overwhelmingly white) crown jewel of the East Allen County School system.


Welcome to post-racial America.


Via my friend Jamie Garwood.

Addendum: This is not to say I support the busing plan -- indeed, this battle has been raging since I was a student and I'm generally opposed for several reasons. I shared this for the characterization of the school and the students in it--not any tacit support of the plan. -jpb

Quote of the Day

"But ultimately, what one thinks of Manning's alleged acts is irrelevant to the issue here.  The U.S. ought at least to abide by minimal standards of humane treatment in how it detains him.  That's true for every prisoner, at all times.  But departures from such standards are particularly egregious where, as here, the detainee has merely been accused, but never convicted, of wrongdoing.  These inhumane conditions make a mockery of Barack Obama's repeated pledge to end detainee abuse and torture, as prolonged isolation -- exacerbated by these other deprivations -- is at least as damaging, as violative of international legal standards, and almost as reviled around the world, as the waterboard, hypothermia and other Bush-era tactics that caused so much controversy."

-- Glenn Greenwald, discussing the inhumane conditions the U.S. government is imposing upon accused leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning.

Read the entire disturbing account here.

Quote(s) of the Day

First, Megan McArdle on Julian Assange:

Julian Assange seems to have fallen prey to what I call Supply-Sider's Disease, a little-known, yet surprising widespread psychiatric disorder in which people become convinced that things they very much want to do from strong moral convictions, must therefore have no downside.

The whole post is worth a read and the last graf screams truth.

Second, an excerpted Thomas Mallon, courtesy of Hitch:

Washington novels, such as they are, tend to be found on racks at National Airport, the raised gold letters of their titles promising a bomb on Air Force One or a terrorist kidnapping of the First Lady. There’s a reason for all the goofiness. A serious novelist must take his characters seriously, regard them as three-dimensional creatures with inner lives and authentic moral crises; and that’s just what, out of a certain democratic pride, Americans refuse to do with their politicians.

Hitchens' City Journal article on the search for the great DC novel is simply excellent top to bottom.

Sorry blogging has been light non-existent recently -- been buried in research.

Have a good weekend!

Quote of the Day, Part Deux

“Saved or created.” “Social justice.” “Aggregate demand.” Speakers of these and other phrases are asking me to ignore them, for they speak bullshit.

-Joe Collins, Alabama in Between

via @normative's twitter feed

Quote of the Day

I'm concerned about the whole idea of carrying papers and always having to be able to prove your citizenship. That brings up some shades of some other regimes that weren't necessarily helpful to democracy.

- (Well-known pinko liberal) Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) on Arizona SB 1070

Via Dave Weigel

Celebrate Humanity, not "the Earth"

via Steve Horwitz:

While large portions of the population celebrate "the earth," take a few minutes and hoist a glass of fine wine or good scotch and give a quiet toast to the millions, if not billions, of human beings whose ability to tame the earth has enabled it to support six billion humans and taken humanity as a whole out of the misery and poverty that has characterized most of its history.  And then toast the great liberal thinkers who understood that economic freedom and the end of privilege was the key to unleashing human creativity and ingenuity as the "ultimate resource" for extending life and liberating increasing numbers of men, women, and children from the solitary, nasty, brutish, and short lives of the pre-industrial era.  It was capitalism's ability to tame and control nature that gave us the very wealth it takes to be able to afford to celebrate "earth day," so don't be an ingrate.  Celebrate markets, freedom, and human creativity because they, as Desrochers points out, are the earth's best friend.

Quote of the Day

From hope you can believe in to disappointment you can count on. What a legacy he's building.

-Jeralyn, TalkLeft, on Obama and his latest deal to renege on federal trials for KSM et al.

Quote of the Day

The Obama Administration continues to leverage heavily on the growing cult of personality surrounding Obama — much like the one surrounding Bush in his first term. For many, Obama’s popularity is unaffected by the fact that he is pursuing the very same hostile policies as Bush on civil liberties, privacy, and open government. More importantly, there appears no reaction to the disconnect between his rhetoric and his actions. Once again, liberals are committing the same mistake that conservatives committed with Bush. Many continue to display blind loyalty and offer little criticism of the President while core values are continue to be challenged by his Administration.

-GW Law Professor Jonathan Turley on Obama's grandstanding hypocrisy viz. "government transparency" on human rights violations.

Quote of the Day

We ought to ask kids to think critically about presidential rhetoric, instead of prodding them to burble appreciatively about his compassionate plans for everybody.

-Gene Healy, author of "Cult of the Presidency," in today's Washington Examiner

Quote of the Day, Double Dish Edition

A Quote of the Day Two-Fer:

None of the leading Democrats really believes that our civil rights are being trampled on; including president Obama, who has still achieved nothing substantive whatsoever for gay Americans.

Oh, I forgot the cocktail party. Always great to throw a cocktail party for the gays. That's what they really want, isn't it? Just give them some cocktails, ask for more money and they'll forget about their civil rights.

Andrew Sullivan, 7/27/09

If you're a Republican, a lot of things are logical: the entire debt began the moment Obama took office; Bush and Cheney never tortured anyone, but Obama is about to; the WMDs really are in Iraq; the president has the constitutional power to send tanks into the streets to arrest any American without charges; deficits don't matter; Obama is a Kenyan Muslim impostor; and Sarah Palin was qualified to be president of the United States at a moment's notice.

Andrew Sullivan, 7/28/09

There are more than a couple issues I disagree with Sullivan on, but I think he, Greenwald, and Maddow are really sticking it to both parties, and rightfully so.

And I didn't realize until I typed the three names, but is it just a coincidence that three of the most thoughtful critics of Obama are openly gay journalists? (Also worth noting, the most forgiving of the three is the self-proclaimed conservative, Sullivan.) I think this probably has a lot to do with their open support of Obama's platform, and--like many of us less Left-inclined--their profound disappointment with the lack of "Change" on so many important, non-DNC issues. The rest of the Left refuses to come to terms with this, and that is to the detriment of all of us.

Quote of the Day

This is a quote of the day in the sense of the "Not Top 10 Plays" of gaffes and miscues ESPN runs on Fridays.

"...Dred Scott v. Sandford is widely regarded as wrongly decided."

--Judge Sonia Sotomayor, responding to written follow-up questions from Sen. John Cornyn.

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote for the Court:“[the negro] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and…might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

And as pointed out by WSJ SCOTUS correspondent Jess Bravin:

Abraham Lincoln, then running for Senate, said the decision effectively nullified the noble promises of the Declaration of Independence. In the Supreme Court’s hands, the charter “is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.”

Bravin's entire post here.

Now, I understand not wanting to antagonize Southern Republicans; but I'm pretty sure that, by now, even they will cop to the human equality of blacks so blatantly spit upon in that decision.

ADDENDUM: It's not that I'm implying anything nefarious/racist on her part. Just kinda floored by her inability to say anything resembling sensible about the case. Dred Scott v Sandford is perhaps only eclipsed by Korematsu (by the latter's placement on the historical timeline) as the most egregiously racist Supreme Court opinion ever written. (And that's saying something.)

It's more of a comment about the sorry state of our current confirmation system than it is any reflection on her. Though, I think she could have said a little bit more and, as it stands, the statement is fully in the running for understatement of the year.

Quote of the Day

Mr Obama, so eloquent on a podium, speaks slowly and carefully in interviews, with frequent long pauses. This is obviously not because he is stupid or disfluent, but because he's hyper-aware of what a misstatement means in his job. Mr Biden, by contrast, is so keen to let you know that he knows all the provinces of Pakistan, that he is more likely than average to say something that will accidentally lead to nuclear war one day.

Economist "Democracy in America" blogger, New York

Quote of the Day

"I expected to be disappointed by Obama. It’s a little breathtaking how early and how badly, though."

-Jason Kuznicki, on Obama's move to the Right cop-out on gay marriage recognition.

It really is amazing that he has been so bad on even the few things libertarians thought he'd be good (or, at least, better than Bush) on.

Quote of the Day

As I mentioned last night on Rachel Maddow, the Obama Administration has become the greatest bait and switch in history. No torture prosecution. No abuse photos. No citizen lawsuit on privacy. Absolute executive privilege claims. It is not surprising that civil libertarians feel that we have succeeded in merely upgrading to Bush 1.2 (with the added ability to pronounce multisyllabic terms).

--GW Law Professor Jonathan Turley