Look who's "gripped by insane rage" [Mark Steyn]
A terrific photo gallery. michellemalkin.com
Condescending, moi? [Mark Steyn]
Re David Brooks, I've no problem with "ideas" in general, but I do have with his in particular. A couple of days after September 11th, as details of what happened on Flight 93 were still emerging, Virginia Postrel wrote:
All three of the men who took action to save their fellow Americans, and quite likely the White House, from destruction were technology-company executives. They were the sort of people David Brooks has been bashing in The Weekly Standard for the past several years. (Sample passage, from this Weekly Standard article: "Nowadays when you walk amidst the office parks, you see a country that is great but insufficient too—great in its scientific accomplishments, in its tolerance and in its industriousness....And yet insufficient because of its self-satisfaction and complacency.") These men were the people who create national greatness, not the ones who talk about it. Like foreign enemies past and present (as well as many American preachers and writers), Brooks has mistaken the quiet pursuit of happiness for weakness and decadence.
It's worth quoting further from Mr Brooks' indictment of the office park:
When you scan through the great figures who are supposed to represent the American spirit, almost all of them seem hopelessly out of place in office parks. We used to think America was a pioneer nation, but the people in the office parks haven’t thrown off the comforts of civilisation to strike out on their own: This isn’t the realm of the Puritan, the Cowboy, or the Immigrant.
So too you can’t fit George Washington in an office park. He may have embodied the American spirit when we were a nation fighting great wars for freedom and democracy, but it is hard to see Cincinnatus getting excited about an IPO.
Nor is it easy to imagine Lincoln parking his Chevy Suburban in one of the oversized spaces and fiddling with his Palm Pilot on his way to the morning meeting. Lincoln was too grand and too political for an office-park nation.
This has a amused glib plausibility but it is (as the Brits say) bollocks on stilts. In the London Telegraph of September 22nd 2001 (not available online), I responded:
I don’t suppose Lincoln would have given his office park any more thought than he gave his log cabin. But, insofar as there were any consolations on September 11th, it was because of the heroism of the “office-park nation” on Flight 93. Why’s that so surprising? Thomas Burnett headed a company that’s making the devices that replace heart valves smaller. These men worked in the most dynamic sector of the economy, where people start their own businesses, develop new products, and maybe don’t worry enough about how swank their office is. Pace Brooks, they are the new pioneers, the first settlers: they strike out for barely charted territory – the undeveloped plot on the sub-division on the edge of town – throw up a rude dwelling and get on with the important stuff. According to a friend, Burnett was a “patriot”, a hunter and military history buff whose office had busts of Lincoln, Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt. It’s what’s inside the office park that counts.
Does Mr Brooks ever wonder what's inside the Annenberg Challenge or the ACORN or Trinity Church offices? And, when the next shoebomber bends down to strike his match, would he rather the guy sitting in the next seat is too immersed in his Niebuhr to notice?
Dinner for one, please, James [Mark Steyn]
Hail Victor Davis Hanson, the last conservative pundit not angling for a seat at the table:
On CNN this evening both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the “old” noble McCain is gone, and a “new” nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, and a few unhinged people shouting at his campaign stops. Recently Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama, likewise lamenting the loss of the old noble McCain. NY Times columnist David Brooks dubbed Palin a “cancer,” and he suggested that Obama’s instant recall of Niehbuhr sent a tingle up his leg as Obama once did to Chris Matthews as well...
With Obama now with an 6-8 point lead, some in the DC/NY corridor these last three weeks figure it’s time now to jump on, or at least sort of jump, since the train they think is leaving the station and there might be still be some space at the dinner table on the caboose. They also believe as intellectuals that the similarly astute Obamians may on occasion inspire, or admire them as the like-minded who cultivate the life of the mind–in contrast to the “cancer” Sarah Palin, who, with her husband Todd, could hardly discuss Proust with them or could offer little if any sophisticated table-talk other than the chokes on shotguns or optimum RPMs on snow-machines... Should I write a column praising Obama’s wit, taste in books, and metrosexuality I would be dubbed principled rather than cynical, ‘even-handed’ rather than self-serving, and a maverick rather than toadish.
The "cancer" crack was extremely un-gallant of the supposed soul of moderation.
As for the "old" vs the "new" McCain, I've had little use for either, as NR subscribers who read my cover story on him from eight-and-a-half years ago might dimly recall. I support him faute de mieux, and that's it. Clearly, he's found it difficult (to put it mildly) to make the transition from running against his party to running for it. There's a lesson there: "Maverick" is an attitude, not a coherent worldview, which is why McCain has been unable to make maverickiness (maverectomy?) into a viable electoral platform. Of course, "hope" and "change" are attitudes, too, but so fluffy as to float free of the constraints of reality.
But, if the combination of gazillions of dollars in illegal foreign donations, Acorn's Dig-Up-The-Vote operation, a doting media that would embarrass Kim Jong-Il and the Republican nominee's inability even to speak up on issues where he was right all along (like Fannie Mae), if all that is now unstoppable, I will be proud to have lost with Sarah Palin, who (unlike Brooks and Buckley) runs a state bigger than most European Union nations, has fought an honorable campaign, and has been responsible for such energy and enthusiasm as the ticket can muster.
Given that neither of us are likely to be in the club-car caboose with Brooks et al come January, if she's ever in New Hampshire, I'll be happy to thank her and buy her dinner at the state's least worst restaurant. Which should set me back all of 12 bucks, but it's the thought that counts. corner.nationalreview.com
thks to LB |
