Ayres, Dohrn, Obama, Clinton, Rodham,...

Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn have been out of the news for awhile now, but a piece by Alfred S. Regnery for The American Spectator reminds us who they are, how they're connected to President Obama, and, for me, how they're representative of that whole 1960s Destructive Generation of unrepentant middle- and upper-middle class America-hating ingrates, as well as the generation of ovine acolytes that succeeded them.

My contempt for these people, these kinds of people, knows no bounds, and, unfortunately, they're everywhere, everywhere "makin' it" in the same America they despise.

In a sane and just world...

Panty Puzzler

Confounding police, a dump of more than 3,000 panties was discovered alongside a country road in remote Ohio.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton confirmed that the former president had not visited the Buckeye state for some time.

Pastimes

D.C. political pundit Charles Krauthammer needs a diversion.  His is baseball and his current enthusiasm is for the hometown Washington Nationals, an almost-but-not-quite-yet team.  He writes, beautifully, about both it and them in today's National Review Online.

The other famous baseball fan pundit is of course George Will and it occurs to me that he, like Krauthammer, is a conservative.  Which prompts the question:  Are there any liberal pundits similarly interested in baseball, in any pastime for that matter, in anything other than politics 24/7?

There may well be, but it is hard to imagine, isn't it, much less come up with a name?

That, I submit, as well as anything, serves to describe and define the differences between the two ideologies.

Good Day Sunshine

By now you've heard of the bankruptcy of the solar-panel making company Solyndra.  This is bad news for the company, its workers, the White House and the Democrats who backed the company, and the American taxpayer who is on the hook for over a half-billion dollars in loan guarantees.

The bright side of this story, however, is exactly the same as the dark side and, on a far grander scale, we can say the same for the failure of the Democrats' nearly one-trillion dollar stimulus package.

The absolute worst thing that could have happened, let me say that again, THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED, would have been for either the company or for the stimulus to have succeeded.  Had they, whatever short-term gains realized would have been realized, long-term failure of even greater proportions would have followed.

The lesson is crucial and, unfortunately, must be reinforced again and again:  No government, irrespective of who happens to be in control at the time, can create economic growth in this fashion.  More importanly, much more importantly, they shouldn't even try.  Our liberty is at stake.

Taking Exception with Exceptionalism

Here's a must read by Shelby Steele: "Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism"

The money passage:

...Therefore it is not surprising that America developed a liberalism—a political left—that took issue with our exceptionalism. It is a left that has no more fervent mission than to recast our greatness as the product of racism, imperialism and unbridled capitalism.

But this leaves the left mired in an absurdity: It seeks to trade the burdens of greatness for the relief of mediocrity. When greatness fades, when a nation contracts to a middling place in the world, then the world in fact no longer knocks on its door. (Think of England or France after empire.) To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline—as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.

Did you catch that?  The Left "makes a virtue of decline."

He goes on to say that "America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?"

Sounds like the Great Reckoning to me.

O, Wonder!

Consider this headline alone, and, if you can bear it, the underlying story as well:  "'Chaz Bono stole my thunder': Pregnant man claims Cher's son took his spot on Dancing With The Stars"

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
(Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I)

Fried Rice

The Bush Administration's first-term National Security Advisor and second-term Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice resents at least some of what Dick Cheney has to say about her in his just-released memoir: "I don't appreciate the attack on my integrity that that implies."  In fact, she goes so far as to agree with her predecessor at the State Department, General Colin Powell, about the character of some of Cheney's recollections:  "I think they do fall into the category of cheap shots."

I don't know about you, but as much as I respect and admire Secretary Rice, in this case, I think I'll take the always blunt-talking Cheney's word over hers about what transpired exactly.  How shall I say this?  We know Powell is, and I'm afraid she may be as well, just a bit more concerned about public image than is the former vice president.  Apologizing for Bush's famous "sixteen words" from his 2003 State of the Union address seemed at the time unnecessary, ill-advised, foolish even.