He has Vlad over a barrel (of oil).
Interesting to compare current to previous president. One is a stooge of the Kremlin, and then there's Donald Trump: https://t.co/4QtnX0HrYr
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) July 8, 2017
Funny, I’m old enough to remember when Barack Obama told Sarah Palin we couldn’t drill our way out of our energy problems. But then, I’m old enough to remember lots of stupid things that Barack Obama said.
Why yes, yes they do hate Western civilization:
So, for Jamelle Bouie, a Westerner asserting the value of Western civilization is barely-veiled racism? If that’s true, then the term “racism” is meaningless. In fact, it’s worse than meaningless: it’s dangerous. If you tell people that to love and to want to defend the culture of the West is a racist act, then they will cease to care about your judgment on the matter, because you are requiring them to hate themselves as an act of virtue. In that regard, Jamelle Bouie’s sentiment here is a much greater gift to the racist alt-right than anything Donald Trump said in Warsaw.
I mean, really, how ignorant and provincial do you have to be, Messrs. Beinart and Bouie, to hear Trump’s speech and think of it as a #MAGA version of a Nuremberg Rally Address? Is the degree of self-hatred of the West required to be a virtuous, woke person such that you cannot tell the difference between Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and the Horst Wessel Song? Do they really think Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation (all of which is available on YouTube, starting here) is a plummy version of Triumph of the Will? If standing against this kind of liberal insanity means I have to stand with Donald Trump, well, okay, I’ll stand with Donald Trump. I won’t like it, but at least Donald Trump doesn’t hate his own civilization.
It’s why they find common cause with Islamists. Also (as usual), want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Jonah Goldberg: In defense of western civilization.
[Saturday-morning update]
Trump defends the West, and the Left cries foul. They’re really showing their colors. So to speak.
[Update a few minutes later]
Some of the critics of Trump’s speech in Poland reject the idea of the greatness of Western Civilization. You don’t say.
NPR tweeted the Declaration of Independence, and you’ll never guess what happened next!
Well, for the Union cause, anyway. Gettysburg had been won the day before, and most recognized that the fall of Vicksburg was the turning point in the war. Union victory was almost inevitable at that point, though it would take almost two more bloody years.
This is a great speech, given on the 150th anniversary, by “silent” Calvin Coolidge. He may be the most underrated president.
Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of links and thoughts:
Yes, I keep repeating this stuff. Because it bears repeating. In Iraq, Obama took a war that we had won at a considerable expense in lives and treasure, and threw it away for the callowest of political reasons. In Syria and Libya, he involved us in wars of choice without Congressional authorization, and proceeded to hand victories to the Islamists. Obama’s policy here has been a debacle of the first order, and the press wants to talk about Bush as a way of protecting him. Whenever you see anyone in the media bringing up 2003, you will know that they are serving as palace guard, not as press.
Worth noting that the Nobel Committee embarrassed itself beyond redemption as well.
[Update a while later]
More of Obama’s foreign-policy mess: Venezuela, the Syria next door. Because he never met a dictator he didn’t like.
An interesting history from Yuval Levin.
In one case we have a politician shot by a deranged nutcase for no discernible political reason, and in the other we have an attempted assassination of dozens of congressmen for a clearly articulated one. And yet observe the coverage.
Not to mention, of course, the completely baseless smearing of Sarah Palin at the time.
How they domesticated humans thousands of years ago.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another take on the same subject.
Sarah Hoyt is worried that we are losing the war to save it.
I’ve been very concerned about this myself for years. Before 911, in fact; I’ve been concerned about Islam since the 80s. Whenever I hear people say “There’s no military solution to this,” I always think that of course there is. But it’s one that could be pyrrhic.